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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25014235">when i'm feeling alone, you remind me of home (oh baby baby, merry christmas)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashlearose13/pseuds/ashlearose13'>ashlearose13</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>12 Days of Christmas, Angst, Christmas In July | Christmas Out Of Season, Christmas Tree, Clint Barton &amp; Natasha Romanov Friendship, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mutual Pining, Slow Romance, What Happened in Budapest (Marvel), chapters include mistletoe and sunburn, clint &amp; natasha are soulmates and thats a fact, i love them</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 06:07:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>85,956</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25014235</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashlearose13/pseuds/ashlearose13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint couldn't have known that introducing an ex-Russian assassin to Christmas would change his life forever, but there's something about the way Natasha's eyes light up under the mistletoe that make the holidays mean something again.</p><p> -</p><p>aka, 12 christmases with clint and natasha, posted in july for festive reasons</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>109</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>223</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. 2005</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarlettShel/gifts">ScarlettShel</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/archers_and_spies/gifts">archers_and_spies</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>annnnd i'm back, with a christmas fic no less!! a fic i actually technically wanted to post last year but then it became this monster (and i say monster bc chapter 1 is literally 12k words and i cannot be stopped) but here we are, christmas in july; specifically, 12 christmases with clint and nat. each chapter is a new christmas, bc you can never have enough christmas. yearly events are gonna be elaborated on idk YOU'LL SEE. also, warnings in each chapter just in case!!</p><p>big thanks and all my love to my favourite ppl in the universe: shelby, cheree and em. this fic is for them and it would not be real without their help and also i just love them sm </p><p>warnings: hints of brainwashing i guess? </p><p>i hope you all enjoy my bby 🥺 i've been working so hard on this and i'm nowhere near finished so the whole thing will probably not be posted in july like i originally planned but it's okay!! we have time!! and i love you!!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <strong>2005</strong>
  </p>
</blockquote><p> </p><p>The day Clint brought Natasha home it snowed.</p><p>He took the corners slowly, wary of ice on the road and concerned that Natasha might throw herself out of the car again. She had tried three times, successfully falling into a snow bank the last time and shocking herself enough that she now sat quietly beside him. He wasn’t convinced she wouldn’t attempt it again, though, even if hypothermia was now something they had to consider.</p><p>Clint had turned the heater up but Natasha hadn’t bothered to warm her hands by the vents. He could see the way her body shook uncontrollably out of the corner of his eye. Clint had thought that the woman he had dragged into SHIELD over a month ago would have had a better sense of self-preservation, but the Natasha he had come back to was a little different. That was why Coulson had asked him to do something.</p><p>Thing was, Clint didn’t exactly know what to do; his best idea was to haul ass to Iowa and hope that a few weeks on the farm was enough to knock Natasha into acting like an actual human being. He had been surprised the first time she had opened the door as he sped down the back roads, and annoyed when she had done it again, but watching her body fly out the door the third time had made him realise he had absolutely no fucking idea what came next.</p><p>“Only ten more minutes,” Clint said to fill the silence.</p><p>Natasha didn’t say anything. A part of him wondered if she was catatonic and if he should be concerned about actually bringing her dead body back to Fury this time. She had only been in the snow for as long as it took for him to reverse the car and jump out after her, and he had saved most of the yelling for when they were back on the road, so he really didn’t know if it was her being too cold or too stubborn to answer him.</p><p>“You can drive faster,” she muttered eventually.</p><p>Clint turned to glare at her. “You gonna jump again?”</p><p>Natasha was small in the seat beside him. “No.”</p><p>Clint blew out a breath of air and pushed the car a little harder. For whatever dumb reason he believed her, just like he believed she had been worth saving in the first place. He still didn’t know if it had been worth the headache and the reprimanding and having to take her to the farm no one was supposed to know about, but for the moment he could deal with it.</p><p>The farm came into view and Clint parked the car by the barn. The house would be cold; he should have thought to ask the neighbours to light the fire, at least, but at the time of deciding to come out here he had been more concerned about getting Natasha as far away from SHIELD as possible, and nothing else had really occurred to him until they were already half-way there.</p><p>Clint took his duffel and Natasha’s backpack from the backseat and led the way, only hoping that she would actually follow him and not stopping to check. His frustration was still simmering beneath his skin and if she tried to run away he probably wouldn’t stop her this time, too tired and annoyed to follow her into the woods and risk getting cold himself.</p><p>It was only Wednesday and Clint was ready for a month-long nap. He unlocked the door, turned off the alarm and let Natasha slide past him into the dark space. He flicked the light switch and watched her blink against the brightness, her eyes rimmed red even though she hadn’t been crying.</p><p>“Home sweet home,” Clint said with just a hint of sarcasm, pushing Natasha’s backpack into her arms. “You can take the room upstairs on the left. It’s probably not made up but I can help when you get out of the shower.”</p><p>Natasha clutched her backpack to her chest and didn’t move. Clint had known it was bad for Coulson to ask him for help, but he hadn’t realised <em>just </em>how bad. He had followed her around Europe for six months and never once had she looked like she did now, even when she had an arrow pointed at her face.</p><p>“Bathroom’s upstairs too,” Clint continued. “Shampoo, soap, all that. You might wanna hurry before you get frostbite.”</p><p>“I don’t have frostbite,” Natasha said.</p><p>Clint stared at her. “Do you want me to go first?”</p><p>Natasha didn’t say anything again. Clint thought she would probably stand there looking at him all night if he gave her the opportunity, so he hoisted his bag over his shoulder and reminded himself to write a lengthy status report to Coulson about how babysitting was quite possibly worse than being yelled at for hours by his bosses.</p><p>Once they reached the bathroom Natasha seemed to come alive, pushing past him to slam the door in his face. He pulled a face at the wood and waited until he heard the water turn on before he stomped his way to his own room. His breath fogged out in front of him and it was really fucking cold and why had he decided to bring Natasha here, of all places, in the middle of December and with absolutely no idea how to handle her.</p><p>Coulson said they were deprogramming her when it started. Clint hadn’t stuck around after the suspension, had gone on something like a vacation except he hadn’t really left his apartment, and during that time Natasha had stopped eating and speaking and generally acting in the way that people usually did.</p><p>He had seen her for the first time yesterday, all sharp cheekbones and dull eyes, and no one could explain what had happened, just that something <em>had </em>happened, and SHIELD wasn’t sold on the idea of her ever being useful in the field. But Clint had vouched for her, and he was somehow still vouching for her, and that was why she was in his house not even 24 hours after he first heard she could be terminated again.</p><p>He changed, then ran back down stairs to start the fire with wood he had chopped last winter. He left the lights off and went back up to make Natasha’s bed, and by the time he had the sheets mostly on properly she was out, standing in SHIELD issue grey tracksuit with pink-tipped fingers and rosy cheeks.</p><p>“Coulson said you stopped talking,” Clint blurted.</p><p>Natasha shrugged. “I didn’t know what he wanted me to say.”</p><p>“You can say whatever you want,” Clint told her.</p><p>Natasha looked genuinely confused by the notion. Clint thought that this must have been what Coulson was talking about when he said <em>she doesn’t act like a person</em>.</p><p>“Well, we should call it a night,” Clint said to change the subject. He was bone tired from driving and not convinced there was anything edible in the house, which meant a full day of shopping was likely on his horizon. Plus, Natasha didn’t actually <em>own</em> anything. Maybe she would like a pair of shoes.</p><p>“Okay,” she said. She put the backpack down by the door and took a step into the room. “I don’t have frostbite.”</p><p>“I know,” Clint answered. He really had to get out of the room before he screamed. “If you get cold there’s more blankets in the cupboard, down the hall. Help yourself. If you wanna run away I’m not gonna bother following you, but if you jump from the window the fall won’t do any damage.”</p><p>Natasha considered him, looking for the first time like the woman he had caught sight of in the middle of a busy Venetian street all those months ago, eyes dark and calculating. “I don’t want to die.”</p><p>“Could’ve fooled me,” Clint said, bitter enough that it changed the expression on her face. “G’night, Natasha.”</p><p>He left the door open when he left. She didn’t close it behind him.</p><p> </p><p>The next day, Clint took Natasha shopping, which turned out to be just as hard as everything else she did. She touched a lot of the clothes, running her hands over the fabric and <em>almost </em>plucking it off the rack, but then she would move away and wait for him to make the suggestion for her.</p><p>Clint didn’t like that. He had no idea what clothes she wanted or what size she was or what looked good and it was all shaping up to be too much for him to deal with. This was the furthest thing from his job description that Coulson could have come up with, and he kind of hated him for it even though half of it <em>had </em>been his idea.</p><p>“You ever been shopping before?” he asked her.</p><p>“No,” she responded evenly.</p><p>“You can pick what you want, you know,” he told her, gesturing to the wall of jeans they were currently standing in front of. “Is there anything you like?”</p><p>“Why am I here?” she said, almost as though she hadn’t heard him. She rubbed the denim between her fingers and considered it carefully.</p><p>“Shopping,” Clint deadpanned. “We have free time and you need some stuff, so.”</p><p>“I don’t have free time,” Natasha said.</p><p>“Today you do,” Clint muttered. “What do you usually do?”</p><p>“Wait for someone to tell me who to kill,” Natasha answered, moving away from the jeans and over to the jackets.</p><p>Clint trailed behind her, rolling his eyes and swinging the basket on his arm. “You don’t have to let anyone tell you what to do anymore. Unless it’s like, to do your job. But you <em>can </em>say no to things.”</p><p>“Okay,” Natasha agreed, though Clint wasn’t convinced that this was the last time they would have this conversation.</p><p>After another half an hour of just looking at clothes, Clint felt like he might snap. He wanted to go to the food court and get three hotdogs and then go home and pass out on the couch. Besides, there was some work to do in the barn and he could probably find something for Natasha to smash to pieces if they could just hurry up and make some kind of decision.</p><p>“You need to buy at least one thing for this to have been successful,” Clint told her. “You can't just wear SHIELD issue sweats for the rest of our vacation.”</p><p>“Is that what this is?” Natasha asked, idly running her hand over the same jacket she had already touched at least five times. “A vacation?”</p><p>“Stop deflecting,” Clint snapped, then ran a hand through his hair. “Sorry. Can we just buy one thing and then I can tell Coulson you contributed meaningfully to this little outing and we can just go and get food, please?”</p><p>Natasha plucked the jacket off the rack, checked the size and then dumped it into Clint’s basket. “Okay.”</p><p>“Okay,” Clint repeated on an exhale. “Do we have the capacity to look at the shoes really quick?”</p><p>By the time they were on the road home, Natasha had a pair of runners and work boots, as well as underwear, socks, pyjamas and the one jacket she had picked for herself. Clint nursed his second hot dog on his lap as he drove, already half-way finished with the first one, but Natasha hadn’t touched the honey chicken he had managed to talk her into.</p><p>He didn’t know what her end game was. He couldn’t figure out if she was doing all these things to be difficult or if she really had no clue what it was like to just be normal. The food court had scared her more than Clint’s arrow had, and the honey chicken had just been a guess in the end because she didn’t give him anything, didn’t even blink at the menu but clung to his arm like she was worried something would happen.</p><p>Nothing ever happened in Iowa, which was why Clint had brought her to his house in the first place. Not even Fury knew about the farm and it made him anxious to think that he was sharing it with a stranger, just some girl he had not killed this one time who still could, technically, kill <em>him</em> if she felt so inclined.</p><p>“You gonna eat that?” Clint said around his mouthful.</p><p>Natasha glanced down at the container on her lap. “No.”</p><p>“Right,” Clint said. “You gonna eat it when we get home?”</p><p>“Perhaps,” Natasha answered. “What month is it?”</p><p>Clint almost ran off the road, dislodging his second hotdog onto the floor as he fought with the wheel to get the truck back on track. Natasha barely flinched, only curling her hand tighter around the container and looking at him with a raised eyebrow.</p><p>“It’s December,” Clint said incredulously. “Did you not notice the giant Santa in the mall? The children screaming in the toy aisle?” He pointed out the window as they passed a snow-covered field. “A literal <em>Christmas tree farm</em>?”</p><p>“Christmas in Russia is not celebrated in December,” Natasha replied.</p><p>“Right,” Clint drawled. “Well. We’re gonna be stuck here until the New Year, so I guess if this is your first Christmas we could get a tree or something?”</p><p>“It is my first Christmas,” Natasha said. “Coulson said Christmas is a time of giving.”</p><p>“Yea, exactly,” Clint muttered, wondering exactly <em>what </em>Coulson had talked to Natasha about between psych evals and deprogramming. “How did you not know what month it was?”</p><p>“Days are not always chronological for me,” Natasha said calmly. “The therapist said that the further I progress, the more things will begin to make sense.”</p><p>Clint let that conversation die, not prepared to go down the therapist path when they were still in such a confined space. Natasha seemed nonplussed, but he wasn’t sure any of her emotions were actually real and the expression on her face rarely changed anyway. He knew she was young like him, maybe by one or two years, and there were times when the days blurred together for him too.</p><p>It would never be the same thing; he didn’t know much about her past, but he did know that there were people out there who liked to scramble the brains of little girls, taking bits out and putting new ones in; that Natasha had wandered Europe for six months with him tailing her and hadn’t even realised it had been six months.</p><p>“I got stuff to make cocoa,” Clint said. “That’s a Christmas kinda thing, I think.”</p><p>“Okay,” Natasha agreed. “I can help.”</p><p>It was the first time she had made any indication that she was interested in what he was saying, so Clint considered that a win. He turned the truck down the driveway and noticed the way the tension left her shoulders just slightly. They hadn’t talked about any of this, hadn’t even talked about if she had wanted to come all the way out here or not. Clint hadn’t had one real conversation with her yet.</p><p>Maybe she would open up a little more over a mug of cocoa. Christmas was a time of giving, after all.</p><p> </p><p>Natasha liked to eat with her fingers.</p><p>Clint watched her scoop honey chicken into her mouth like she hadn’t eaten in weeks, and he supposed that she hadn’t, really, since Coulson hadn’t seen her take a bite of anything in at least a month. He had handed her the fork and she had purposefully knocked it on the ground so many times that he eventually realised she just didn’t want it, and after that she had been more than happy to stuff her face.</p><p>It was weird. Clint didn’t want to watch but every time he left the room she came to find him, and so he was forced to sit at the table and pretend it was a perfectly normal thing to eat Chinese food with your hands. If she was being difficult then he had to give her credit for being consistent, but he was beginning to think there was a little more to it than that.</p><p>“Cocoa?” Clint asked eventually, eyelids heavy even though they hadn’t really done much that day. He blamed the snow and the mall. It had been <em>loud</em>.</p><p>Natasha nodded and moved to the sink to wash her hands. Clint filled a saucepan with milk and tried to remember how his mum used to make it, sprinkling the chocolate powder in over the top and giving Natasha the spoon to stir it with.</p><p>“I can't remember if you let it boil,” Clint told her, rummaging through drawers for the bag of mini marshmallows he always kept in the house. “If it doesn’t taste good we can just have beer instead, I guess. Tomorrow we can do some barn work.”</p><p>“You have to call Coulson,” Natasha said. “He wants sit reps for every breakthrough we have.”</p><p>Clint stood up abruptly, smacking his head on the open cupboard door above him. “What?”</p><p>“Coulson wants to know –“</p><p>“No, I got that,” Clint said, rubbing his head. “But you don’t… you don’t have to say that kinda stuff to me, okay? We’re having vacation or whatever so… we don’t think like it’s a mission.”</p><p>“This is a mission for you,” Natasha said. “You wouldn’t have me here otherwise.”</p><p>Clint stared at her. “I invited you here because I was a little worried, actually. And it isn’t just about killing people and reporting to Coulson and making sure you act fucking normal, Natasha. I still get a say in things, and I still <em>care</em>.”</p><p>Natasha stared back at him, face stoic. Clint hadn’t meant to snap but he was trying to make things nice, trying to show Natasha that she could feel comfortable with him and that not everything was just another mission. He had been frustrated with her ever since he had been tasked with tracking her down and it wasn’t fair, he knew that, but it also wasn’t easy.</p><p>He turned back to the bag of marshmallows, trying to tear into the corner. He heard the sound of the spoon scraping the sides of the saucepan, then a splash that he could only attribute to Natasha letting go of it. When he glanced over his shoulder she was still staring at him, though this time she looked a little different. This time she looked worried.</p><p>“Just fish it out,” Clint said, rolling his eyes. The bag of marshmallows was indestructible. He opened the cutlery draw for a knife, piercing the plastic and ripping into the goodies, letting the smell of the sugar calm him down.</p><p>It was quiet in the kitchen. Clint was about to offer a marshmallow to Natasha when he saw her, face pinched as though in pain, standing by the stove with her hand clenched around the spoon she had just dropped.</p><p>“What the fuck?” Clint cried, dropping the bag and moving over to Natasha. He gripped her wrist hard enough for her to drop the spoon, still scalding from sitting in the hot milk, and walked her over to the sink to run her burnt hand under cold water.</p><p>“You told me to get it out,” Natasha whispered.</p><p>“With another spoon or something, Jesus,” Clint groaned.  “You don’t… Don’t let me tell you to do shit like this. You don’t stick your hand into a hot pot of milk.”</p><p>Natasha remained silent. Clint turned her red skin under the water, feeling something akin to panic settle over him for the first time since he had met her. What if he made things worse, what if he completely ruined any chance she had at being an agent and Fury decided she wasn’t worth it anymore?</p><p>He pulled her hand away from the tap and inspected the angry burn. Natasha let him, shoulders slumped and head bowed, and Clint kind of wished she would just get angry at him, that she would at least show something that didn’t look like defeat. He wet a cloth and wrapped that around her palm, closing her fingers over it.</p><p>“Let’s just… sit down,” he offered eventually.</p><p>Natasha sat robotically and Clint hated that it had sounded like an order, but the adrenaline was starting to wear off and he really needed a beer. He took two from the fridge, sliding one across the table as he sat opposite her. She stared unflinchingly at her crudely bandaged hand and he wondered if she even felt it.</p><p>“Don’t let me do that,” Clint repeated. He took a swig of beer, tried to wash the guilt out of his mouth. “Natasha, I want this to be a safe place for you. I know I’m not… not exactly, um, the most hospitable person to live with? But I’m trying to be.”</p><p>Natasha shrugged. “This is your home. You didn’t ask for me to come here.”</p><p>“No,” Clint frowned. “I suggested it.”</p><p>Natasha looked at him then, really looked at him. Her eyes had been the first thing he had noticed all those months ago, watching her through the scope of a rifle as she stared out the hotel window in Paris. She had stood there for hours, staring at nothing, eyes empty in a way that made his skin prickle. </p><p>“I’m trying,” Clint said again. “But this is different for me too, so we need to help each other.”</p><p>“Okay,” Natasha said carefully. She reached for the beer and Clint pretended to ignore her shaking fingers. At least it was <em>something</em>. “I didn’t want to ruin the cocoa.”</p><p>“We can try it again another day,” he assured her, then shrugged. “My mum used to make the best hot cocoa when I was a kid. She was my favourite person in the world, even though she let my dad hit me.”</p><p>He didn’t know if it was the right thing to say, if bringing up his own traumatic past would in any way benefit her deprogramming or only make it worse. Coulson hadn’t known what to do, though, and a whole bunch of SHIELD psychologists hadn’t known what to do either, and all of their ideas had ended in <em>her</em> not doing anything at all, and he realised vaguely that there wasn’t any real way he <em>could </em>stuff this up. It had already been stuffed; he just had to fix it.</p><p>“Metal forks taste like blood in my mouth,” Natasha said.</p><p>Clint stared at her. “Okay. I’ll get some new cutlery.”</p><p>Natasha had a swig of beer. Clint thought this might be what Coulson meant when he talked about <em>progress</em>. Perhaps the cocoa hadn’t been his worst idea yet.</p><p> </p><p>They spent the rest of the week at the farm finding small, mundane tasks to keep themselves busy. Clint mostly tinkered and found a few things that he felt comfortable leaving Natasha alone with, and when she wasn’t busy doing whatever he had left for her she obsessively read and re-read the one cookbook he owned, curling up on the porch swing or following him wherever he went.</p><p>It wasn’t quite comfortable in the way that Clint had hoped it would be, but it was more than what he had been expecting. Natasha still slept with the door open at night, though he didn’t really know if that was personal preference or something else, something to do with the way she was raised or the fact that she didn’t really <em>like </em>being on her own. The cookbook thing was weird but he wasn’t about to take it away from her.</p><p>He <em>did</em> want to leave the farm though, mostly to get some more groceries but mainly to buy cutlery that Natasha would actually use so she would eat real food and not just whatever she could scoop up with her fingers. So they went into town with far less apprehension than they had felt at the start of the week, and Clint was in good enough spirits that he didn't mind spending two hours picking out shirts for Natasha.</p><p>"Thank you," Natasha said suddenly on the drive home. She had a kebab in her left hand and a churro in her right, though the decision of which to eat first was clearly more difficult than he would have thought. "I don't have much, but I'll repay what I owe."</p><p>Clint glanced at her and shrugged. "Don't stress. SHIELD will cover it."</p><p>"It is... difficult to understand," she began, then huffed. "How easy it is supposed to be."</p><p>"Don't think too much about it," Clint grinned. "Remember, we're on vacation. And we have one more stop to make before we get home."</p><p>In hindsight, buying lunch before stopping at the Christmas tree farm probably wasn't a great idea, but then again, dragging a Russian assassin into the country had been worse, so Clint figured hindsight was a bitch anyway. He didn't think Natasha would mind if the food got cold.</p><p>“What is this?” Natasha asked.</p><p>“We’re getting a Christmas tree,” Clint said enthusiastically. “For your first Christmas. There’s nothing like the real thing.”</p><p>“Does it make a difference?” Natasha said. She frowned as they pulled into the carpark and brought her kebab closer to her chest. “What about lunch?”</p><p>Now it was Clint’s turn to frown. “Firstly, <em>yes</em>, it makes a difference. And second, you can carry your lunch if you want to. It doesn’t have to stay in the car.”</p><p>Natasha eyed his own half-finished kebab. “What will you do?”</p><p>Clint hated these moments, the moments when Natasha made him choose for the both of them without really making it <em>seem</em> like she was making him choose. When he had taken her away from SHIELD he had overheard something about her not being capable of making autonomous decisions but it was just one of those things that didn’t mean anything at the time.</p><p>And here they were a month later, trying to make progress and be normal and buy a Christmas tree without having to plan it like some kind of weird, Hallmark-style mission, and Natasha still couldn’t say to him, <em>yes, I’ll take my lunch with me</em>.</p><p>“Yea, I’ll probably finish mine on the walk,” Clint said. He noticed the barely perceptible flash of relief on Natasha’s face and sighed. “Bring your gloves for when you’re finished. It’ll be cold.”</p><p>Natasha followed behind him closely, kebab clutched tightly in her hands and cheeks pink from the cold. It would almost be endearing if she wasn’t the single most annoying thing in his life right now. He was slowly getting used to sharing his space with someone who didn’t know <em>how </em>to share space, but it wasn’t quite what he had been expecting and no amount of SHIELD training had ever covered how-to-teach-your-Russian-assassin-to-be-a-good-roommate.</p><p>“Any jumping out at you?” Clint asked her. The farm was busy with families panic-buying their trees at the last minute, which also meant that all of the good ones had been taken. “I know they’re not the greatest.”</p><p>“How do you know?” Natasha asked.</p><p>Clint pointed to the tree nearest them. “If you take a needle off the branch, it should snap when you bend it. If it doesn’t snap then the tree has been cut for a while.”</p><p>He plucked a needle from the tree, then demonstrated how it bent instead of snapping. Natasha made a noise that he hadn’t heard before, a kind of gasp that almost seemed <em>excited</em>, but it didn’t fit the expression on her face. She took a step closer to him, bending to inspect the needle in his palm.</p><p>“So this is a bad tree?” At his nod, she straightened and walked to the next one, pointing at it rather than touching it herself. “What about this one?”</p><p>Clint lost track of how many trees he tested after the twenty-first one. Between mouthfuls of kebab Natasha paraded him around the farm, pointing out tree after tree until he could hesitantly guess that the strange expression on her face actually <em>was </em>excitement. He had long ago abandoned the last of his own lunch in the trash, resigned to the fact that picking a Christmas tree was just as hard as picking anything was.</p><p>Natasha balled up her kebab wrapper and shoved it into her jacket pocket, shuffling through the snow to the next tree in line. “What about this one?”</p><p>“You could always test it yourself, you know,” Clint said tiredly. It was getting darker and colder and he had really thought that they would have been in and out, no questions asked. “I showed you how.”</p><p>Natasha paused. “I can’t.”</p><p>“What do you mean?” Clint asked. He snapped off another needle and showed her again, twice. “It’s simple. Just bend the needle and see how fresh it is.”</p><p>“I…” Natasha frowned, then reached her gloved hand out to prod at the branch. “I can?”</p><p>Clint swallowed his pity. “Course you can. Show me on the next one.”</p><p>The next tree was lopsided, a little bent at the top and wide down the bottom. It wouldn’t be Clint’s choice, but he figured it wouldn’t hurt to just let her test it out and move on. If his calculations were correct they were almost out of trees anyway, so it wouldn’t be long before they were back at the farm and he could escape whatever hell this was.</p><p>Natasha took a needle and bent it. “It’s not fresh.”</p><p>Clint could have told her that, but he just shrugged and started walking away. “I don’t know if <em>any </em>of these trees will be very fresh. We kinda left it a bit late.”</p><p>It took him all of twenty seconds to realise that Natasha hadn’t followed him, and he spun around quickly, heart hammering in his chest and fingers reaching for the knife in his jean pocket. If she decided to run now he probably <em>would </em>have to chase her, if only for appearances sake, but if she started a murder spree at the Christmas tree farm he really didn’t know how he would explain that one to Coulson.</p><p>No one was being maimed, though. Clint blinked, tried to clear his head of adrenaline and make sure that he was actually seeing her sat in the snow beside the tree. Her face was oddly empty, even more so than usual; he took a cautious step towards her, hyper-aware of the families that were still mingling around them.</p><p>“Natasha,” he said carefully. “What are you doing?”</p><p>She blinked at him. “Sitting.”</p><p>“I know that,” Clint stressed. He grit his teeth, felt the familiar tingle of frustration beneath his skin. “It’s wet and cold. Let’s get up and go before you get freaking hypothermia or something.”</p><p>“I don’t have hypothermia,” Natasha replied automatically.</p><p>Clint closed his eyes. “Let’s go to the car and get you warmed up.”</p><p>When he re-opened his eyes Natasha was still sitting, still staring at him with her blank eyes and blank face and he kind of wanted to shake some sense into her. Her pants would be wet and probably the bottom of her jacket, too, since she had apparently bought it three-sizes too big the first time they went shopping, and it was more than annoying, now; it was getting in the way of what needed to be done, and he just wanted to do something normal and pick a tree and –</p><p>Clint frowned. “Do you <em>want</em> this tree, Natasha?”</p><p>“Okay,” Natasha agreed, and stood up. “Now what?”</p><p>“Okay,” Clint breathed, pinching the bridge of his nose. He needed to call Coulson. “We need to find someone to help us get it to the car, and then we can take it home.”</p><p>Taking the tree home turned out to be the easiest part of Clint’s day. He found a towel for Natasha to sit on and cranked the heater much like he had the day he had brought her out here, except this time she had gloves and a beanie and wasn’t actively trying to injure herself. It was later than he had hoped, but he didn’t want to leave the tree tied to the top of the truck all night and he figured some physical work might help Natasha sleep better.</p><p>It was a short tree, and between the two of them they hauled it into the living room fairly easily. He sent Natasha to have a shower and threw her clothes in the washing machine, then took his phone and a beer out to the porch, dialling Coulson’s number whilst he still had a few minutes on his own.</p><p>“How’s Iowa?” Coulson asked.</p><p>“You owe me a real fucking vacation,” Clint whispered angrily into the phone. “Phil, I swear to God.”</p><p>“It was ultimately your choice to bring her in,” Coulson reminded him.</p><p>“Yea, because she <em>looked </em>like she knew how to take care of herself. I didn’t know it was gonna be like… like this.”</p><p>Clint kept an ear out for the sound of the shower, not wanting Natasha to accidentally stumble into a conversation about herself that he doubted she was ready to hear. Coulson was the kind of quiet that made Clint antsy for no reason, like he had to fill the silence with words until his handler was ready to talk himself. He bit his tongue and waited though, if only to prove a point.</p><p>Eventually Coulson said, “Do you think it’s worth continuing this experiment?”</p><p>“Experiment,” Clint repeated. He hadn’t thought about if from SHIELD’s perspective, hadn’t considered how it was really just one big test that she either passed or failed and that determined whether her life was worth saving. Natasha was weird, but still.</p><p>“Say the word, Barton,” Coulson said. “I can have it arranged.”</p><p>Clint sighed through his nose and rubbed the back of his neck. “I can't do that. You know I saw real emotion on her face today? She got excited over some fucking Christmas trees.”</p><p>“It sounds like you’re doing something right, then,” Coulson chuckled. “More than what any of us could manage, anyway.”</p><p>“It’s not easy,” Clint said. He had a mouthful of beer and looked out over the yard, down the snow-covered drive and right out to the mountains. “What if I'm <em>not </em>doing anything right?”</p><p>“I think a friendly face is enough in most circumstances,” Coulson replied. “You might be surprised.”</p><p>Clint heard the shower shut off, and then the bathroom door open a second later. He could imagine Natasha standing in her towel on the landing, hesitating between getting dressed first or coming to look for him. He didn’t know why she did it, and he was pretty sure she didn’t even know it herself; it was just another thing in a list of things that didn’t make sense.</p><p>“Guess we’ll find out,” Clint muttered. “I gotta go. We have a tree to pot.”</p><p>“Let me know when you’re coming back,” Coulson said. “Technically, I can allow you one more week.”</p><p>“Technically I deserve a vacation,” Clint grinned. “See ya, Phil.”</p><p>He necked the rest of his beer and made it inside at the same time that Natasha came downstairs. Her hair was wet and dripping past her shoulders and it made her look younger, enough to make him hesitate in the doorway and really, truly look at her for the first time all week.</p><p>She frowned at him briefly but remained still. He thought it would be better if she just asked him what he was staring at so he could make up some kind of excuse, though he didn’t know what he would say. Her hair was bright and her eyes were tired and her skin was perfectly smooth in a way that it shouldn’t be but he couldn’t verbalise any of it. He couldn’t lie to her when she looked at him like that.</p><p>“How old are you?” Clint blurted.</p><p>“Twenty-four,” she replied evenly. “Give or take a year.”</p><p>Now it was Clint’s turn to frown. “Do I want to know?”</p><p>For the first time since he had met her, Natasha’s lips quirked up slightly at the corners. He wouldn’t go so far as to call it a real smile, but it was a start. “Probably not.”</p><p>“Right,” Clint laughed. “Wanna set up this tree?”</p><p>“Okay,” Natasha said. “I don’t know what to do.”</p><p>Clint grabbed the stand and took it into the living room, then came back and helped Natasha with the tree. Getting it into the stand dislodged more needles than it should have, but the tree was old and it was to be expected. He sent Natasha to fill a bucket with water and explained how to keep it full, and by the time the floor was swept he could hear the bells on the washing machine announce that the cycle was finished.</p><p>“We can decorate it tomorrow,” Clint huffed, wiping his brow. “I’ll go grab the washing and then we can try the cocoa again, if you want.”</p><p>Natasha shrugged from where she knelt by the tree. She was completely entranced by it, even if it looked terrible standing against the wall. It wasn’t big enough or straight enough, and the top still drooped pathetically, but it had been her pick and he wasn’t about to point out its faults. He just shook his head and took the stairs two at a time, already thinking about how many marshmallows he could fit in his mug.</p><p>Clint should have checked the clothes before he put them in the wash. He usually did, prone to forgetting coins or memorably, once, a mini screwdriver, but he had been more concerned with getting Natasha warm after her impromptu time in the snow than he had been remembering her kebab wrapper. It was all through the clothes, stuck in every crevice of the machine, and it looked like the kind of job he didn’t want to deal with right now.</p><p>He heard Natasha a second before he felt her peer over his shoulder. The floorboards creaked as she shifted her weight, and it took him longer than he liked to realise that she was getting ready to run.</p><p>“It’s not a big deal,” he said. He carefully stepped to the side, not turning around, taking the clothes over to the basin so he could start peeling the mushy paper off. “I forget things in my pockets all the time.”</p><p>“I don’t forget things,” Natasha said sharply.</p><p>“You weren’t thinking of it, then,” Clint answered. He risked it and faced her, leaning against the bench casually. “You think I care about a little bit of paper in the washing?”</p><p>“It’s an inconvenience,” Natasha said. Her voice was almost as soft as her body was tense. Clint wondered about the place she had come from but couldn’t quite create the visual.</p><p>He shrugged. “It’s not. You can help me pick it off, if you want. Or you can start the cocoa.”</p><p>“We’re still having cocoa,” Natasha said, and despite it sounding more like a statement than a question, Clint answered it anyway.</p><p>“Course we are. It’s like, three days until Christmas and we haven’t had any yet.”</p><p>Natasha stared at him as she weighed her options. He noticed the exact second she made up her mind by the way she unclenched her fists. “I’ll make the cocoa.”</p><p>Clint smiled. “Good. I’ll only be a minute.”</p><p>Natasha nodded and left the laundry, and Clint waited until he could hear her rattling in the drawers downstairs before he let his head smack back against the wall. Coulson had been right again. A friendly face <em>was </em>enough.</p><p> </p><p>Clint was already halfway across the landing, breath fogging in the cool air before him and toes curled against the floorboards when he realised that there wasn’t actually anything wrong. He heard Natasha grunt, the unmistakable sound of the springs on her bed as she hauled herself up, and then she was shoving past him into the bathroom, knees slamming to the ground as she retched into the toilet.</p><p>“You okay?” Clint asked sleepily. The scream had woken him and his body had reacted to the threat automatically, except now that he knew that it was just her he kind of wanted to go back to bed.</p><p>Natasha didn’t reply. Clint shouldered the door open a little wider and leant against the frame, fighting the urge to hold back her hair. He didn’t have the right, though he vaguely wondered if she would let him.</p><p>“Hey,” he said softer. “Bad dream?”</p><p>Natasha nodded and wiped her mouth. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”</p><p>“It’s fine,” Clint assured her. “I have bad dreams, too.”</p><p>Natasha flushed the toilet and stood, and Clint could see the silvery tear tracks running down her pale cheeks. She looked like shit, her skin the kind of pallor that he would generally associate with an illness. There was a wild look in her eyes, though, like a caged animal or a bomb about to explode; a hot, sticky look that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.</p><p>He cleared his throat. “You wanna talk about it?”</p><p>“Are you going to make me talk about it?” Natasha asked. She met his gaze in the mirror as she washed her hands, and there was an edge to her that he hadn’t seen since that first night in her room.</p><p>“No,” he said eventually. “You can say whatever you want, remember?”</p><p>Natasha blinked, and it was like she came back into her body. He watched her face clear of emotion again, watched her file away every inch of the expression she had just been wearing until she was blank and swaying at the sink.</p><p>“You feel like going back to sleep?” Clint asked.</p><p>“No,” Natasha whispered. “But I will.”</p><p>She stumbled past him and he watched her all the way down the hall, heard the bed as she fell onto it and then a noise that could have been a muffled sob. He wanted to go after her, pull the blankets around her and hold her hand, maybe, tell her it was going to be alright and they were going to help her.</p><p>He went back to his own bed instead, but this time he kept the door open, too.</p><p> </p><p>On Christmas Eve Clint hauled his old, ratty box of decorations out of storage and dumped them unceremoniously in front of Natasha. “We gotta decorate this thing.”</p><p>He had spent the better half of the morning trying to find the box, and surprisingly Natasha hadn’t left her room until noon. He had heard her screaming again last night, and he didn’t ask because he heard enough, heard the words that clawed their way out of her throat without her seeming to realise it. There were dark marks under her eyes and a secret that sat heavy between them, even if she wouldn’t remember it.</p><p>“Ever decorated a tree before?” Clint asked.</p><p>Natasha shook her head. “This is my first Christmas.”</p><p>“Oh yea, right,” Clint said softly. “Well, it’s easy. You just get to stick the decorations wherever you want.”</p><p>He pried the box open, pulled out some musty tinsel that was significantly duller than he remembered it as a kid. The baubles were chipped, the angel for the top missing her wings, but Natasha made that face that he was mostly sure was excitement so he didn’t think it would matter.</p><p>“What first?” she asked.</p><p>“Doesn’t matter,” Clint said. He squinted at the tree and frowned, not sure that the decorations would actually make it look any better. “We used to do tinsel when I was a kid.”</p><p>Natasha glanced at the decorations but didn’t make a move to select anything, and it dawned on him that she didn’t actually know what tinsel was. He picked it up and held it out, watching her fingers rub the shiny strands. She bundled it up in her hand and swung it back and forth experimentally. Clint let her. She had done weirder things.</p><p>“Where?” she asked eventually.</p><p>“Usually you wrap it around.” Clint took the other end of the tinsel and started to wrap it around the bottom of the tree, letting it unravel from her hands. “You wanna help?”</p><p>“Yes,” Natasha said. She stood in a single motion that didn’t seem possible and started to drape the tinsel over the branches, handing it off to him so that he could finish the parts she couldn’t reach. “Now what?”</p><p>“Baubles,” Clint said. He hung one off a branch and felt his throat tighten. When was the last time he had had a Christmas tree? “They’re kinda mismatched, so it doesn’t really matter where they go.”</p><p>Natasha took Christmas tree decorating as seriously as she took everything else, hanging the baubles with a precision that Clint lacked. It didn’t take them long to fill the branches and fix the angel to the lopsided top, and by the time they were finished it didn’t actually look too bad. He stood back and admired their pathetic little tree and made a mental note to get some lights to drape alongside the tinsel.</p><p>It had made a difference, though, if only in the way that Natasha held herself. He couldn’t confidently say that she was ready to go back to SHIELD, or if she would <em>ever </em>be ready for that matter, but it meant something, to see her relaxed; it meant something to know that she ate and spoke and got excited, that she wasn’t the robot the psychologists had believed her to be.</p><p>“What’s this?” Natasha asked.</p><p>Clint felt heat rise to his cheeks as he noticed the decoration she was holding: a crudely painted pinecone that was supposed to resemble a reindeer. “I made that at school, when I was a kid. I gave it to my mum.”</p><p>“Your mum,” she repeated slowly. “Was it just you and your parents?”</p><p>Clint didn’t know where the interest came from, but he was glad that she seemed to be making some kind of effort. “Nah, I had a brother. Older and dumber. I don’t know where he is now.”</p><p>“Do you miss him?”</p><p>Clint paused, watching Natasha inspect the reindeer ornament, and realised that when he thought about it, he <em>did </em>miss Barney. It had taken years for Clint to even consider forgiving him, and he had, in his own way, not that Barney would ever know it. But he had never considered the ache that came without him, the blunt, dull pain that he felt every time he thought, <em>I had a brother</em>.</p><p>“I guess,” Clint said, not knowing how to put it into words. Complex emotions were not foreign to him, but they could be a bitch to explain. “Maybe it’s like missing a limb, and you get phantom pain. You ever heard of that?”</p><p>She didn’t answer him. He thought it was a pretty stupid way to explain it, anyway, and wondered if he should try broaching the subject with Natasha. Did she have a family? Or, more importantly: did she have a family that she could remember?</p><p>The lamp he had switched on in the corner flickered. Clint stood and reached for it, giving it an experimental shake and then banging it down on the side table, hard. Natasha flinched and a brief flash of guilt shot through him, because it was the first time he had startled her since they had been here and he had been so careful up until now, but it passed as quickly as it came. The lamp wavered for a second, and then stayed bright.</p><p>Natasha frowned. “Did you grow up here?”</p><p>“Not in this house,” Clint replied, then shrugged. “There were a lot of houses, actually. Got moved around the foster system a lot.”</p><p>“I didn’t have a home,” Natasha said, her gaze sliding past him to focus on the door. The hair on his arms prickled, the air suddenly charged with electricity. “Or a mother.”</p><p>Clint moved a second slower than Natasha, but he still managed to snag her around the waist and yank her to the ground as she tried to run past him. She hit out, the palm of her hand colliding with his nose, and he felt the spurt of blood almost instantaneously. He kneed her in the gut, forced her down until he could get her in a headlock and hold her firmly against his chest.</p><p>“Stop,” he snapped. She struggled in his grip, legs kicking out in front of her. “Natasha, stop it.”</p><p>“You stop it,” she hissed. “Let me go.”</p><p>“You gonna run again or you gonna tell me what the fuck is going on?”</p><p>Natasha slumped into him and against his better judgement he let her go. His nose was bleeding steadily, so he reached blindly for the throw rug that hung from the couch, trying to staunch the flow. Natasha spread herself out on the ground like a starfish, panting, and Clint fought the urge to get angry with her.</p><p>“What was that then?” Clint asked.</p><p>“Coulson doesn’t know. SHIELD doesn’t know,” Natasha replied. “I didn’t mean to hit you.”</p><p>Clint knew that this was the closest thing to an apology he would get, but he was still pissed. “Yea, well. SHIELD never told me about this. Besides, I was asking <em>you </em>what it was.”</p><p>“If I think about my childhood, it gives me a headache,” Natasha admitted softly. “And usually that means that… that I’m going to lose something. Most of the time, I try to run.”</p><p>It didn’t make sense to Clint. “Lose what?”</p><p>“My choices,” she whispered. “Memories. Things I like.”</p><p>SHIELD knew little about the girls that emerged from Russia; the girls with sharp teeth, the girls who grinned like wolves and killed without question. The girls like Natasha, who had gaping chasms instead of memories, who had fight or flight ingrained so deeply into her being that it wasn’t a decision she could control. Natasha, who screamed at night for her mother but couldn’t consciously think of that part of her that was missing.</p><p>“You get these headaches a lot?” Clint asked.</p><p>Natasha shook her head. “Not recently.”</p><p>And a small part of Clint took pride in that, as twisted as it was, that she had felt safe enough, or at least content enough, to tell him that. It took more than he would ever understand for her to admit her weaknesses, and he wasn’t going to take it for granted, even though she had almost broken his nose and now his blanket was ruined.</p><p>"You want a lollipop?" Clint asked eventually. "You know, hard candy on a stick?"</p><p>Something passed over Natasha's features. "Candy?"</p><p>"Yea, you just suck on it," he said, wincing at how crude he sounded. "Anyway, I'll go get some."</p><p>He found the lollipops easily enough in the kitchen drawer, glad for once that Natasha didn't know enough about candy to question why he had so much of it. Hill would tease him for it if it were her here instead; Coulson, too, would probably roll his eyes and tell Clint to eat real food. He took his time, though, giving her a minute to collect herself. He didn’t know what had just happened or if he should even be leaving her alone or what he was supposed to do next.</p><p>He wiped up the mess she had made of his nose and selected a strawberry lollipop for her, then made his way back into the living room. Natasha was standing on the couch on the tips of her toes, trying in vain to fix the angel that had sadly drooped along with the top of the tree. She jumped down when she saw him and accepted the lollipop, ripping the plastic off and shoving it in her jeans pocket. Then, she watched him, waiting to see what he would do next.</p><p>He didn’t say anything, just stuck his own lollipop in his mouth, and Natasha followed suit without even appearing to think twice about it. Her eyes widened minutely, lips puckered around the candy, and after a second she pulled it out of her mouth with an audible <em>pop</em>.</p><p>Clint laughed. “Good?”</p><p>“Yes,” Natasha replied. Her tongue darted out to lick her lips, catching the sweet, sugary syrup. “It’s very good.”</p><p>“Grab your stuff,” Clint said, pulling his own coat on over his grubby shirt. “I have an idea.”</p><p>Natasha followed him out of the house and into the car without asking a single question. Clint hated that she still did that, because it had nothing to do with trust and everything to do with obedience, and it made his blood boil to imagine the methods that might have been used to force a little girl to comply. The snow was falling steadily, though he knew that it would do nothing to stop the last-minute panic buyers at the mall.</p><p>“We’re going to meet Santa,” Clint said, unable to contain his excitement at the idea. “You know Santa, right? We’re gonna get a photo with him.”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>Clint didn’t really know why, just that the spontaneous idea seemed like fun, and he figured it might be a good distraction. “I don’t know, people take their babies to meet Santa all the time.”</p><p>“I’m not a baby,” Natasha said around her lollipop. As if to prove a point, she crunched down on the candy, filling the cab of the truck with the sound of her chewing.</p><p>“Obviously,” Clint said. “If you do it, I’ll dig out my old photos with Santa from when I was like, three.”</p><p>Natasha considered this, then shrugged. “Okay.”</p><p>Clint was right: the mall was packed. The line to meet Santa was long, too, and it almost didn’t seem worth it. He had bet Natasha, though, so it was really up to her if they were going to leave. There were kids everywhere, and the noise was chaotic at best; Natasha’s fingers found the sleeve of his jacket, and he let her tether herself to him as they shuffled forward in line. So maybe bringing a flighty Russian assassin to meet Santa wasn’t the best idea.</p><p>Before he knew it, they were next in line. Natasha surveyed Santa’s Kingdom with an eye that was looking for exits rather than presents. Clint led her through the gate and made the first step towards the man who was imitating Santa, shaking his hand only so that Natasha could see that there were no weapons hidden in his long, red sleeves. She didn’t relax, but Clint wasn’t entirely sure she <em>could </em>in a situation like this.</p><p>“Go up and sit on Santa’s knee there, sweetheart,” one of the assistants said.</p><p>Natasha’s eyebrows met her hairline. “What?”</p><p>Clint didn’t think; he just stepped in front of her and sat himself squarely on Santa’s lap, grinning like it was exactly what he had meant to do, and gestured for her to stand behind him. It wasn’t the most embarrassing situation he had found himself in by far, but it did cause a few kids to start giggling at the front of the line.</p><p>“Okay, sweetheart, just smile for me,” the assistant called from behind the camera. Clint could feel Natasha behind him, but didn’t want to look in case his own slightly crazed smile scared her even more. “Three, two, one!”</p><p>Clint climbed off Santa’s lap, paid for the photo and accepted the printout they handed him. Natasha watched the children enter after them, eyes fixed on their little faces as they excitedly told Santa what they wanted for Christmas. Clint took one look at the photo and couldn’t help but snort; he sat on Santa’s lap like he’d been professionally fixed there, nose a little purple and smile so fake it screamed for mercy. Natasha stood behind him, eyes narrowed, hands curled into fists at her side.</p><p>“You look like you’re being tortured,” he wheezed.</p><p>Natasha tore her eyes away from the children long enough to look at the photo. “I don’t look like that when I'm being tortured.”</p><p>Clint winced, then nodded his head towards the exit, happy with how the afternoon had panned out. He let Natasha scrutinise the photo on the drive back and tried to work out where the idea had come from. Maybe it had been because they were talking about family, or maybe he just wanted something to show for this weird time of his life. Whatever the reason, they had the photo. He couldn’t wait to stick it to the fridge.</p><p>They arrived home at dusk. Clint could tell that Natasha wanted to ask something but he couldn’t guess what until she refused to enter the house with him. He shrugged, let her wander around outside on her own, and took his laptop with him to the living room.</p><p>Coulson answered his video call on the fifth ring. “Agent Barton, to what do I owe the pleasure?”</p><p>“I took Natasha to meet Santa,” Clint said. “Before you give me that look, you gotta see this.”</p><p>Clint held the photo up to the screen. He watched the amusement flicker in Coulson’s eyes, then heard Maria’s peel of laughter from somewhere behind him. Clint took the photo away and frowned, trying to spot her.</p><p>“Did I mention that Agent Hill is here?” Coulson said.</p><p>Her head popped up over Coulson’s shoulder. “Love it, Barton. What’s wrong with your nose?”</p><p>“Bite me,” he snapped. “I ran into a door. It was fun, anyway. Romanoff can have fun now.”</p><p>“Cute,” Coulson deadpanned. “Where is she?”</p><p>Clint shrugged and settled himself further into the couch. “I don’t know, I’m letting her walk around outside or something. <em>Unsupervised</em>.”</p><p>“Is that a good idea?” Maria asked, but one look from Coulson had her retreating out of the office entirely. Coulson sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He looked tired.</p><p>“Don’t worry,” Clint assured him. “I’m fairly confident Natasha won't run off anymore. She’s… weird, but turns out it’s not that hard to get used to.”</p><p>He didn’t tell Coulson about the incident earlier in the day. He felt that it didn’t involve SHIELD, since it had happened at his property anyway, and he kind of owed it to Natasha. She had let him drag her to the mall to take a photo with a man dressed as Santa Clause just because he thought it would be fun. Keeping one little secret from Coulson wasn’t going to hurt anyone.</p><p>“This coming from the man who begged for a vacation three days ago?” Coulson said drily.</p><p>Clint rolled his eyes. “I <em>still </em>want a vacation. I just don’t think all hope is lost. She uses cutlery now.”</p><p>Coulson stared at him. “Do I want to – ”</p><p>“Wooden cutlery. Can you believe they make that?”</p><p>Clint heard Natasha stamp out her boots on the front mat, then the sound of the door opening and closing behind her. He heard the pause he was used to, knew that she would see him on the couch through the living room door, but rather than coming straight to him she climbed the stairs instead.</p><p>“Wooden cutlery is the least of your problems,” Coulson was saying, though Clint was barely paying attention. “The council is raining hell on Director Fury, and they’re days away from sending a Strike Team after you.”</p><p>“Make sure it’s Hill’s,” Clint said absently. He glanced at the roof above him, tracked Natasha’s footsteps as she crossed the landing and descended the stairs again. She appeared behind him in an instant, wearing her pyjamas already even though they hadn’t had dinner yet.</p><p>“I got wet,” she said by way of explanation.</p><p>Clint didn’t even want to know. “Do you wanna say hi to Coulson?”</p><p>Natasha hesitated, then moved her head into frame. “Hello, sir.”</p><p>“Hello, Natasha,” Coulson replied. “Remember, you can just call me Phil.”</p><p>“You hate when I call you Phil,” Clint pouted. “I see who the favourite is.”</p><p>“How are you feeling?” Coulson ignored Clint, re-directing his attention to Natasha. “I hope Barton isn’t annoying you.”</p><p>“Fine,” Natasha said. “Clint is very hospitable.”</p><p>Clint didn’t like the way Natasha was speaking. He peeked at her out of the corner of his eye and noticed the tightness in her jaw. He didn’t understand it, if she had an issue with authority or just disliked Coulson, but he didn’t like to see her feeling uncomfortable in the space that was supposed to be safe. He would need to talk to her about it, and probably to Coulson too, before they headed back to SHIELD.</p><p>“Speaking of hospitality, we should really make dinner,” Clint said. He hoped that Coulson got the real message he was trying to convey. “Spaghetti carbonara?”</p><p>Natasha didn’t reply. Coulson smiled tightly. “That sounds delicious. I’ll call you by the end of the week.”</p><p>“Sounds good, sir,” Clint replied. “Merry Christmas.”</p><p>“Merry Christmas to both of you, too.”</p><p>The screen went dark. Clint could see Natasha’s reflection staring back at him, so he shut the laptop screen. She crawled over the back of the couch and fell in a heap beside him, her sock clad feet digging into his legs. It was the most contact they had made with each other – apart from the incident earlier, but he didn’t think it counted – and it made him feel <em>something</em> when her thigh pressed against his and she didn’t move.</p><p>“We’ve had an interesting day,” Clint said. “I can't remember the last time I did anything on Christmas Eve.”</p><p>“You always do something on Christmas Eve,” Natasha said matter-of-factly. “It’s just a day.”</p><p>Clint took a chance and knocked his shoulder against hers. “Yea, I guess. But I haven’t done anything <em>for</em> Christmas for… a while.”</p><p>It had been years, actually. Coulson threw a party every year, and Clint was always invited, but he had never attended. It wasn’t that he didn’t know anyone; Maria went, as did a few of the other agents he had trained with in the past. It was something else, something that he didn’t quite understand. He had never <em>liked </em>Christmas, not since his mother had died and he had stopped celebrating in foster care. Being with Natasha made it new, though, in a way that he hadn’t imagined.</p><p>“I have never done anything for Christmas,” Natasha said. “But I think I like it.”</p><p>Clint grinned. “That means I’m doing something right.”</p><p>“Thank you,” Natasha said. She seemed unsure of the words but pressed on, gaze fixed firmly on the Christmas tree. “I know that it’s difficult for you to be here. It was difficult for Coulson too. Sometimes I can't control the way I act and it’s… not always fair.”</p><p>It was the most Natasha had ever spoken to him. He automatically wanted to object about it being difficult but thought it pointless to lie. He needed to be honest with her too, if they were serious about making this work. He wanted Natasha to go back to SHIELD and feel safe enough to want to stay there.</p><p>“It’s fine, Natasha,” Clint said. “It was never going to be easy. I dragged you into this life that you had no idea about and expected you to be fine.”</p><p>“No,” Natasha argued. “You gave me a choice. You <em>keep</em> giving me choices. I just don’t know how to react.”</p><p>Clint couldn’t help but smile. “I think you’re doing okay. You wanna make dinner now?”</p><p>“I’m actually not hungry,” Natasha admitted. “I might just go to bed, if that’s okay?”</p><p>Clint was too happy that Natasha had actually decided something for herself to be concerned about her skipping dinner. “Yea, no worries. I’ll see you in the morning.”</p><p>“Good night, Clint,” Natasha said softly.</p><p>This time when she climbed the stairs, he couldn’t hear a single footstep.</p><p> </p><p>Natasha was awake before Clint the next morning. He stumbled downstairs sometime before lunch, still feeling exhausted even though they hadn’t been doing anything other than shopping and relaxing for the last two weeks. A part of him couldn’t wait to get back into his routine, his fingers itching for the string of his bow. He guessed that Natasha might feel the same way; she didn’t seem the type to sit still for long.</p><p>She was in the living room, sitting on the ground, staring at the gift he had managed to wrap and place under the tree last night without her noticing. He was surprised to see another gift beside his, smaller and wrapped in newspaper. Intrigued, he wandered in and sat beside her.</p><p>“Merry Christmas,” she said. Her fingers were tapping rapidly on her knees, and it took him a minute to realise that she wasn’t anxious or upset. This was <em>excitement</em>; real, uncontained excitement, and it made him excited too. “Is that for me?”</p><p>“Yep,” Clint grinned. “Merry Christmas, Nat.”</p><p>He wasn’t sure where the nickname came from, just that it sounded better, it <em>felt </em>better than calling her Natasha. She turned to him slightly, forehead crinkled, and he thought she might get mad at him. But then she just rocked forward a little, as though to grab for the gift, though she pulled herself up short.</p><p>“You can take it,” he assured her. “It’s yours.”</p><p>Natasha’s hands darted under the tree, and she pulled the poorly wrapped present out on an exhale. It wasn’t anything special, just dollar-store wrapping paper and a stick-on bow that hadn’t really stuck properly, but Natasha opened it like it was made from gold. He held his breath, suddenly nervous.</p><p>“Oh,” she breathed. It was an old, worn copy of The Velveteen Rabbit, the one that his mum had read to him as a kid. He had found it when he was looking for the decorations and it had felt right to give it to her, especially since it was her first Christmas and he hadn’t had time to get her anything else.</p><p>Clint couldn’t tell what she was thinking. “It’s not much, but I thought you might like to read something else that’s not a cookbook.”</p><p>“Thank you,” Natasha whispered. She opened the picture book delicately and ran a finger over the illustrations. “I’ve never had a storybook before.”</p><p>“It was my favourite when I was a kid,” Clint told her. “Used to think my toys would come alive, too.”</p><p>Natasha’s lips quirked again into that same, small, almost smile he had seen earlier in the week. It made him proud or something to see it, even if pride was a weird thing to be feeling, but he <em>had </em>been the one to bring her in and it was nice to see her open up. He had seen her work, knew what her face looked like when it was lit in fake laughter, but he couldn’t wait for the day she smiled and it was real.</p><p>“Thank you,” Natasha said again, clutching the book tightly to her chest. “You can open yours.”</p><p>Clint still had no idea how Natasha had managed to sneak a gift past him. He wasn’t surprised, though, considering she <em>was</em> one of the best spies in the world. He had forgotten it over the last couple of weeks; or, at least, not thought about it in the context of her living with him, because she seemed so removed from the woman he had tracked down.</p><p>He reached eagerly for his gift and tore into the paper. Two things fell into his lap, and he felt his throat tighten briefly as he picked them up and inspected them. Natasha had made a reindeer to match his own, except unlike his the detail was perfect, the pinecone somehow transformed into something that didn’t even really resemble a pinecone anymore.</p><p>The second gift was a painting of the farm, and again the amount of detail surprised him. Their lopsided Christmas tree could be seen through the window, and Clint didn’t know where Natasha had even found paint in the house but he couldn’t be annoyed at her snooping, not when the results looked like this. If he squinted, he thought he could see the backs of their heads, sitting beside each other on the couch.</p><p>“Wow,” he said, then felt embarrassed that he couldn’t think of anything better to say. “Natasha… this is incredible. I didn’t know you could paint.”</p><p>“Yes,” Natasha said carefully. “I paint to distract myself. Coulson gave me a notebook.”</p><p>“I’d love to see some more one day,” Clint said. He reached out and hung her reindeer beside his own, watching it spin slightly on the ribbon she had attached to it. “This is amazing. Thank you.”</p><p>“Christmas is a time of giving,” Natasha stated. “I have never <em>given </em>before.”</p><p>Clint understood what she was trying to say. He knew what it was like to take, though he could never relate to it on the scale that she did. She had taken from others and had things taken from her, things that she should have had a choice in but didn’t. He was glad that she had made the decision to give him something; it was just another way that she could prove SHIELD wrong, and he couldn’t wait to tell Coulson that she had done something completely unprompted.</p><p>“I thought we could have pancakes and hot cocoa,” Clint said. “And then we have the whole day to do whatever we want.”</p><p>“That sounds nice,” Natasha agreed. She looked up at the tree, legs jittering. “I’m glad you brought me here. I haven’t… I haven’t felt anything like this before.”</p><p>Clint swallowed the lump in his throat. “It’s okay. I’ll start the pancakes, hey?”</p><p>Natasha nodded, and he left her in the living room for a minute, pausing at the doorway to look back at her. Her pyjamas were crumpled, her hair sleep-tousled yet vibrant; her fingers gripped tightly to her book, and her eyes remained fixed on the tree, and all of it made her look impossibly young and peaceful for the first time that Clint could remember.</p><p>It solidified something in his chest, to know that despite his reservations and concerns and annoyance over the last two weeks, they had still managed to get to here: Natasha making him a gift because she <em>wanted </em>to, not because she had been told to. It didn’t seem like much. To him, it meant more than he could ever explain.</p><p> </p><p>They spent the rest of the day eating pancakes and watching Christmas movies on TV. It was the first time they had turned the TV on since they had arrived, and it held Natasha’s attention for a couple of hours. She eventually curled up on the sofa, toes brushing his thigh again, and read The Velveteen Rabbit.</p><p>They didn’t do much for dinner, picking at leftover pancakes and spiking the cocoa with the vodka Clint had hidden when Natasha had first arrived. He had hidden a lot of things, concerned for not only his safety but her own, and now it all kind of seemed pointless. She hadn’t commented on the fact that he had no razors or knives, though he was sure she had noticed.</p><p>Still, she didn’t say anything when he pulled the vodka out, just let him pour a hefty amount into her cocoa. He put Home Alone on and by the time the credits were rolling Natasha was asleep, cocoa finished and head cushioned on her arm against the back of the couch.</p><p>Clint had been expecting a call from Coulson all day, so when his phone eventually rang he hauled himself off the couch and stepped back into the kitchen to answer. “Don’t be the Grinch now, Coulson.”</p><p>He heard his handlers deep sigh and could imagine Coulson rubbing his temples. “You need to bring her back.”</p><p>“Not right now,” Clint said. He leant around the corner and watched Natasha sleep, her small body curled into a tight ball on the sofa. “It’s late and she’s sleeping.”</p><p>“No,” Coulson said. “Tomorrow.”</p><p>Clint closed his eyes. “I really think that a few more days will be beneficial.”</p><p>“I don’t have that time to give you.”</p><p>He had never expected to find himself trying to buy Natasha more time. Just last week he had wanted her gone, had found her too difficult because he didn’t understand why she acted the way that she did. She had opened up to him, more than he had expected, and now SHIELD wanted her back to unravel the carefully constructed trust they had built. He had no doubt that she would shut down the second she was back on base, and even though he knew realistically that they couldn’t stay on the farm forever, it was tempting.</p><p>“I swear, Phil,” Clint said, scrubbing at his face. “I swear I can bring her back almost normal if I just have a few more days. If we leave tomorrow, she’s gonna go backwards.”</p><p>“I don’t like it either, Barton, but –”</p><p>Clint didn’t hear the rest of Coulson’s sentence, focusing on Natasha and the way she suddenly sat up straight, scrambling to get her feet beneath her so she could race up the stairs to the bathroom. He followed after her slowly, making sure his footsteps were loud enough to hear, and cut Coulson off.</p><p>“I’ll be back in four days,” Clint said. “Trust me on this, Coulson. I’ll take whatever punishment Fury dishes out.”</p><p>“Are you making the right decision, Clint?” Coulson asked. “Are you thinking rationally, or are you letting your emotions take charge again?”</p><p>Clint bit back his anger. “I’m doing my job.”</p><p>“Okay,” Coulson conceded after a moment. “Don’t make me regret this.”</p><p>Clint hung up without replying, pushing the bathroom door open to find Natasha standing in front of the mirror, knuckles white from where she gripped the basin tightly. She hadn’t been sick, she didn’t <em>look </em>sick, but she did look wild and angry and maybe even a little bit sad, the most emotions he had seen on her face since he had met her.</p><p>“Bad dream,” she whispered. Her eyes were unfocused and he was reminded of the image of her behind the window, staring for hours, a target that was almost <em>too </em>easy to hit. “I don’t want to talk about it.”</p><p>“You don’t have to,” Clint told her. “Would you like a glass of water?”</p><p>“I’m not real, Clint,” she said, ignoring his question. “It’s a bad dream.”</p><p>“I know it is,” he said softly. “But it’s <em>just</em> a bad dream. C’mon, do you want to go to bed?”</p><p>“I don’t have frostbite,” Natasha muttered. She turned towards him and moved slowly towards the door, fingers shaking, and he realised with thinly veiled horror that she wasn’t actually awake. “Merry Christmas. I was making ornaments out of fish hooks.”</p><p>“Okay,” Clint said carefully. He reached out and gently gripped her arm, guiding her out of the bathroom. “We’re gonna go back to bed, okay?”</p><p>It occurred to him then that she may have been asleep at the window in Paris, and all of the other windows she had stared out of in the six months that he had followed her, and he suddenly felt sick. He didn’t know what it meant, for her or for her future, but it made his gut feel like a bottomless pit and he was glad that he had stood up to Coulson. He couldn’t send her back now. Not like this.</p><p>“I don’t want to kill you,” she said. Her fist caught him in the side of the neck and he wheezed, fingers digging into her arm tighter than he meant. Natasha gasped, then jerked like she had been shocked. “Stop.”</p><p>Clint let go of her immediately. “You were sleep walking.”</p><p>“Oh,” Natasha said. She tucked her hands under her armpits and regarded him closely. “Are you okay?”</p><p>“Yea,” he said. His neck was sore but it wasn’t the worst thing that had ever happened to him. “Are <em>you </em>okay?”</p><p>Natasha shrugged. “Does it make a difference?”</p><p>“Always,” Clint replied. He tried to catch her gaze again but she was staring pointedly at the wall. “Have you had a good Christmas, anyway?”</p><p>“Yes. I know that we have to go back soon.”</p><p>Clint couldn’t lie to her, not anymore. “Yea, but I bargained us a couple of extra days. Fresh air will help clear your head. Tomorrow we’re gonna go for a hike and scream from the top of the mountain, okay?”</p><p>“Scream about what?” Natasha asked.</p><p>“Whatever we want,” he said. “Bad dreams. Bad brothers. We can scream about good things, too, like Christmas and cocoa.”</p><p>And then she smiled. Clint didn’t know if she even knew she was doing it, but her lips pulled up, kept pulling up until it made her eyes sparkle, too. She still looked haunted, and he was okay with never knowing, if that was where they ended up in the future; if they drifted apart to continue their lives, or were forced by SHIELD to forget about the two weeks on the farm. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that. He wanted to know her, the <em>real</em> her.</p><p>He would have to tell Coulson, though. He would have to tell SHIELD and watch them pull her apart again, try to find the piece of her that was programmed to do whatever the hell she had just been doing. But he knew now that he wouldn’t leave her alone to face them again. If she let him, he would be with her every step of the way.</p><p>“Okay, Clint,” she said softly, still grinning. “I’ll scream from the mountain with you.”</p><p> </p>
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<a name="section0002"><h2>2. 2006</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>when did i become someone who posts chapters on a schedule?? idk her but i like her. i hope she stays (but lets be real its me and im TRASH) here's chapter 2, i hope you like it, and THANK YOU so much to everyone who left a comment on chapter 1 im gonna get to those asap!! this chapter features diamonds, sleepwalking and christmas at coulson's. what a combo</p><p>warnings: there's like non-graphic, general injury observation. if that's a thing</p><p>on that note, welcome to christmas in 2006 (and this chapter is definitely more chapter-length than whatever happened in chapter 1, bc i told myself to calm down this time. but also. she's still long)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
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    <strong>2006</strong>
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</blockquote><p> </p><p>Clint cracked an eye open to find Natasha hovering over him.</p><p>It didn’t surprise him anymore. Nothing Natasha did ever really surprised him anymore. Besides, what was Clint's was kind of, <em>technically</em>, hers now too. They had never really set any boundaries after the farm, had decided it was pointless to impose more rules on her when they wanted her to be independent, and so far it had worked. They had been partners for the better half of the last year and successful on ninety-nine percent of their missions, and somehow from this had ended up with the reputation of being SHIELD’s deadliest duo.</p><p>It made Clint laugh, seeing the faces of the other agents as they passed Natasha in the halls. For all that SHIELD had cleared her for field work, she was still really freaking weird, and no one ever saw it except for him and Coulson. Sometimes she stole all of his left socks just for the sake of proving that she could, and the only thing SHIELD’s psych team hadn't been able to figure out was whatever the fuck happened to her brain when she walked around completely unconscious. Coulson found it amusing, but he hadn't woken up like<em> this</em> before.</p><p>Clint sighed. "Romanoff, you're sleep walking again."</p><p>"I want a bazooka," Natasha said. Her eyes were glassy but her arms were holding her weight surprisingly well. Once, he had found her staring down at him from the hammock above his in the Philippines, and hadn't quite been quick enough to catch her when she fell.</p><p>“Coulson said no,” Clint reminded her, even though fully conscious Natasha wouldn’t <em>need </em>reminding. “You can have a grenade, and only if you're lucky. It’s time for bed.”</p><p>"Some people without brains do an awful lot of talking," Natasha said.</p><p>"Bed, Natasha," Clint repeated. He snapped his fingers next to her ear and watched her eyes blink into focus. A second later, she collapsed on top of him. "My god, woman. Get off."</p><p>Natasha propped her head up and scrutinised him. "What time is it?"</p><p>"Early," Clint moaned. "You were quoting movies again."</p><p>"Your fault for showing me them," Natasha muttered. She rolled off him, pulling the blanket with her, and curled up in a tight ball by his side. "No place like home, right?"</p><p>Clint winced as her cold toes dug into his back. "Right. Go to sleep, Nat."</p><p>It had taken them a long time to reach this level of comfort around one another. He figured it had started back on the farm and grown when they had been forced into their partnership, except it hadn’t been as forced as Fury had expected because Natasha was still following him around aimlessly at that point. They thrived together though, which was perhaps the weirdest part of it all to Clint. He didn’t <em>do</em> partners, and he especially didn’t do partners that broke into his room and fell asleep in his bed.</p><p>Psych had thrown around the phrase <em>touch starved </em>and it made sense, when he thought about it. Natasha would kick his ass in a heartbeat and then wrap her arms around his neck in the next second, wanting to be close to someone who wasn’t going to use their body against her. It had been uncomfortable the first time she had actually hugged him, though now he felt some kind of warmth every time she reached for him, some kind of <em>something </em>that made his toes tingle. That she trusted him enough to do it in the first place was some kind of miracle.</p><p>“I like the Wizard of Oz,” Natasha said. Clint could tell from the sound of her voice that she wasn’t far from falling asleep, but he also knew she could put it off for days if she needed and <em>would </em>do that just to get a point across. “Tap your heels, go home. Wonder where it would take me?”</p><p>Clint frowned and rolled over so he could see her face, smooshed against his pillow. “What do you mean?”</p><p>“Just wondering,” Natasha mumbled. “I have a headache.”</p><p>Clint was used to these moments, too. The moments when Natasha flipped, the lost memories of her life from <em>before</em> forcing their way to the forefront of her mind and making it impossible for her to do anything other than run. He cared about her now, more than he had the previous year; more than just making sure she lived so he wouldn’t feel like a failure himself, more than just the mission he had thrown out the window the second he had laid eyes on her. He cared about her enough that letting her run wasn’t an option anymore.</p><p>“Go to sleep,” Clint told her, wrapping an arm around her waist and holding her down even as her muscles tensed beneath his grip. “You can't go anywhere tonight.”</p><p>Natasha cracked one eye open. “Thank you.”</p><p>Clint reached out with his free hand and closed her eye again, fingertip brushing over the delicate lid. Her eyelashes fluttered and he felt her exhale on his arm. “Anytime, Nat.”</p><p>There was a part of Coulson that didn’t think it would work out, even now. A small part of Clint had wondered it too. It <em>was</em> too much, sometimes, having Natasha like this. Even though she could do her job, even though she was better than half the agents that had come out of the Academy last year, even though she hadn’t killed anyone that she wasn’t supposed to yet. There was always that <em>but </em>at the back of his mind: but what if she <em>couldn’t</em> do her job? But what if she <em>did </em>kill someone she wasn’t supposed to?</p><p>And yet she was still here, and he would wake up tomorrow and they would keep going, and he would wonder instead about the way he didn’t let go of her, even though she was fast asleep.</p><p> </p><p>The next morning Natasha was gone. Clint had a quick shower, washed the smell of her lavender shampoo off his arm and let the warm water knock some clarity into his head before he was forced to face the day and whatever Coulson decided to throw at him. He was supposed to do something with the new recruits, something that would give him a sore head and the urge to drink, no doubt, but he was still trying to get back in Coulson’s <em>good </em>good book and it was a small price to pay.</p><p>He found Natasha in the cafeteria, hunched over her breakfast like someone would be dumb enough to come and take it from her. Clint helped himself to two mugs of coffee and sat in the empty chair beside her, kicked his foot up and snagged a triangle of toast from her plate. The glare she shot him could cut glass. He bit into the toast and grinned.</p><p>“I was going to eat that,” Natasha said.</p><p>Clint shrugged. “You can go get more. No one’s stopping you.”</p><p>If possible, Natasha’s glare deepened. “You can get me more.”</p><p>“I’m already sitting,” Clint moaned, sighing dramatically. “You got legs, Romanoff. Use ‘em.”</p><p>Natasha’s foot shot out from under the table, colliding with his wrist before he could react. He dropped the toast as the pain shot down his forearm, some kind of expletive leaving his mouth in a rush and causing half the cafeteria to turn their gaze to see what had caused him to jump.</p><p>Clint was almost too impressed by her flexibility to be angry. He stretched his fingers, rotated his wrist, made sure all of the bits that were supposed to work were actually still working. Natasha smirked at him and lowered her leg, and he wanted to say something about table manners or at least get a little frustrated with her, but he couldn’t help but laugh.</p><p>“Okay, you got me. How many slices do you want?”</p><p>Natasha hunched over again. “Whatever.”</p><p>Clint rolled his eyes but didn’t argue. <em>Whatever </em>was Natasha’s new way of handballing the decision to him, and whilst it had originally been Coulson’s solution to her just not speaking at all, it was fast becoming Clint’s least favourite word. That, and <em>headache</em>. He needed his coffee.</p><p>He took four pieces of toast and dumped them on her plate, then sat heavily in his chair again. He cast his gaze over the agents still watching, daring someone to say something about how he did what she asked, because it wasn’t like that and none of them would ever understand. He had been called many things since bringing Natasha in: traitor and manwhore and defector, as though <em>he </em>was the one who had left his life behind on a whim and followed a complete stranger into enemy territory.</p><p>He knew that they thought she had seduced him, too. Or maybe he had brought her back for himself. The rumours were persistent and harsh and also completely ridiculous, and they made Clint want to punch everyone who even considered the idea that this was all a game. They didn’t know what it had been like, what it was <em>still </em>like, how hard they had worked to get to even this level of normalcy. Natasha eating toast was a milestone these days.</p><p>“You got anything important on today?” Clint asked her. “You can come scare the recruits with me, if you want. I’ll let you beat one up.”</p><p>“Coulson is sending me to Angola,” she replied, brows slightly furrowed. “Will the recruits still be there when I get back?”</p><p>“What’s in Angola?” Clint said. It wasn’t like he needed to know everything about what she was doing, but this was the first time that he had heard about any potential solo mission, and he hadn’t been aware that she was cleared for it yet. Something about it didn’t sit right with him.</p><p>“Drugs,” Natasha said evenly. “Corrupt police.”</p><p>“Then why are they sending you?”</p><p>Natasha gave him a look, her eyes searching his face for the annoyance she could hear in his tone. He didn’t think corrupt police in Angola were worth her time, and he didn’t understand what Coulson was getting at, sending one of SHIELD’s best to stop something as trivial as that. Maybe there was more to the story, and Natasha was keeping another secret from him. He kept his expression even. Two could play at that game.</p><p>Eventually, Natasha rolled her eyes. “Ask Coulson.”</p><p>“Did <em>you</em> ask Coulson?” Clint snapped.</p><p>Natasha frowned. “Is there a problem?”</p><p>There wasn’t a problem, and that <em>was </em>the problem. Natasha was more than capable of flying to a foreign country on her own, and Clint had no right to be angry about being left in the dark. She wasn’t his responsibility anymore, even if he still acted like it, even if he had begun to think of them as a team instead of two agents that were technically independent of each other. It only stung because he had spent a year with her and had fallen into the kind of habits he had tried to avoid in the past; relying on people had never gotten him anywhere except on the streets and then here, and here was only good because of Coulson.</p><p>“No, there’s no problem,” Clint deflated. “When do you get back?”</p><p>“December 24<sup>th</sup>,” Natasha told him. He made a sound of protest and she raised her eyebrows. “What? Is there a problem with <em>that</em>?”</p><p>“Um, yes,” Clint gasped. “That’s Christmas Eve – ”</p><p>“ – just another day – ”</p><p>“And we’re not gonna have time to smuggle a tree into Coulson’s office!” Clint snatched another piece of toast from her plate and shoved half of it in his mouth, chewing angrily and feeling ridiculous for it. He had kind of thought that they could at least make <em>something</em> of a tradition out of Christmas, if only so that Natasha could have some fun, normal experiences.</p><p>“Coulson has a party on Christmas Eve,” Natasha commented. “Are you going?”</p><p>Clint sighed. “I don’t really do parties.”</p><p>“It might be fun,” Natasha said softly, and if Clint didn’t know her better he would almost think that she was ending the conversation. Except it was Natasha, and this was probably the closest he would ever get to hearing her beg.</p><p>“Do you want to go?” Clint asked. “There’s nothing stopping you.”</p><p>Natasha took one of his mugs and sipped at the coffee, watching him with unreadable eyes. Clint really didn’t want to go to Coulson’s party, but he could maybe see how it <em>would </em>be fun. He could probably make another deal with Natasha, anyway, since she seemed to thrive off owing people things for some sick reason.</p><p>“I’ll go with you if you get me something from Angola,” Clint conceded. “Do they have something they’re known for?”</p><p>“Diamonds,” Natasha answered immediately. “Everyone knows that.”</p><p>Clint blinked at her. “I’ve literally never heard that in my life, but okay, you gotta bring me a diamond.”</p><p>He thought Natasha might protest, but she just tilted her head to the side and shrugged one shoulder. “Okay.”</p><p>“Right,” Clint drawled. He knocked back the rest of his coffee, swiped another piece of toast, and dodged the half-hearted punch Natasha threw at his side. “I gotta go show the rookies how it’s done. I’ll see you before you go?”</p><p>“No,” Natasha said. “I’m leaving this morning.”</p><p>“Oh.” Clint paused, really giving Natasha a once-over. She looked fine, fresh and alert after her impromptu trip to his room last night. He never brought it up with her the next day because it didn’t matter to him and she wasn’t much to talk about her feelings, either, yet he couldn’t help but wonder what she would do if it happened when she was on her own. “I guess I’ll see you on Christmas Eve, then.”</p><p>Natasha’s lips quirked slightly. “At Coulson’s party. I’ll be the one with the diamond.”</p><p>Clint tried to think of something witty to say but came up blank. It shouldn’t be a big deal, but here he was making it one, when not even she seemed to care about being shipped off across the globe on her own for the first time since he had dragged her here. And it <em>wasn’t </em>a big deal. Except –</p><p>“Stay safe, Nat,” Clint said softly.</p><p>“It’s just corrupt police,” Natasha deflected. She took a bite of her toast and shrugged. “What could go wrong?”</p><p> </p><p>Clint dragged himself into Coulson’s office sometime around dinner, feeling a little worse for wear after spending the whole day running through drills with the recruits. He didn’t usually put so much effort in, but it had been an easy distraction following Natasha’s surprise departure. He told himself it wasn’t worry that he was feeling in the pit of his stomach. He <em>knew </em>she could take care of herself.</p><p>Coulson had a pizza box open on the desk in front of him. “How was training?”</p><p>“That better be pepperoni, and it better have my name on it.”</p><p>Clint sat heavily in the chair opposite Coulson’s, by-passing the sofa he usually draped himself over; if he sat on something soft, he couldn’t guarantee he would ever get up again. The lights were dimmed slightly, the office warmer than the gym had been. He couldn’t remember how long Coulson had been stationed at the Triskelion but thought it would be getting close to half a year, at least, if the state of the office was anything to go by. He wasn’t even <em>trying </em>to hide the pillow he kept under the desk for late nights.</p><p>“Help yourself,” Coulson said. He shrugged out of his suit jacket and draped it over the back of his chair, then leant back and folded his arms over his chest. “Training?”</p><p>“What do ya want me to say?” Clint asked around a mouthful. The pizza was warm but it was still the best thing that had happened to him all day. “Got ‘em to work through drills. Kicked their asses. I’m gold, Coulson.”</p><p>“You speak to Romanoff today?” Coulson asked.</p><p>Clint lifted a shoulder. “Did <em>you </em>speak to Romanoff today?”</p><p>“She told me you were in a mood,” Coulson said pointedly.</p><p>“I am <em>not </em>in a mood. She was being difficult.”</p><p>Coulson rubbed his eyes. Clint shoved the rest of the pizza in his mouth and then kicked his shoes off, stretching his aching legs out in front of him. He wanted to ask about the mission and find out why he had been kept out of the loop this time around. He also wanted to know why Natasha, of all people, had been chosen to pursue something as mundane as dirty police in Angola.</p><p>“Define difficult,” Coulson said eventually. “Her not making a decision doesn’t count anymore, remember?”</p><p>Clint huffed. “Fine. She wasn’t really being difficult. But she did break into my room last night.”</p><p>“She didn’t mention that.”</p><p>“Of course she didn’t mention it.” Clint rolled his eyes and snagged another slice of pizza. “She’s not going to jeopardise a mission. Did you get this from somewhere else? Cause it’s not really greasy enough.”</p><p>“Natasha can blend into any environment,” Coulson said. “She was the only choice for Angola. We sent her alone so you wouldn’t get in the way.”</p><p>Clint pretended to be offended. “I never get in the way.”</p><p>“There are particular fractions within the police force that are beginning to concern not only SHIELD, but our friends over in Russia.”</p><p>“And you’re sending Nat?” Clint snapped. He put the pizza down, reaching instead for his shoes again. He didn’t even know where he was going, just that he was going <em>somewhere </em>that wasn’t here with Coulson. He couldn’t believe his handler’s stupidity. “What kind of shit are we talking about here?”</p><p>“Natasha was confident that it wouldn’t be a problem,” Coulson said. “As far as we know, there haven’t been any moves from Russia to monopolise on this yet.”</p><p>“You said it yourself, Phil. She can blend into any environment. What’s to say they don’t send another girl to do their dirty work?”</p><p>Coulson was unphased by Clint’s anger. If anything, he almost seemed amused, and it only made Clint’s frustration grow. Sometimes it felt like he was the <em>only </em>one who cared about Natasha’s wellbeing, and it didn’t mean a thing to him that she wasn’t worried about the mission. He could ask her to fly into space without oxygen and she probably would, if she thought it was the right thing to do.</p><p>“The Red Room has been inactive for nearly two years now,” Coulson said patiently. “Natasha was confident that she ended it. At the end of the day, it was her choice.”</p><p>“Like hell it was,” Clint said. “You know damn well she wouldn’t say no to you.”</p><p>Coulson’s lips pressed into a thin line. “I couldn’t suggest anyone else. We’re sending her in on short notice to do a little reconnaissance and we’re hopeful that it won't raise any red flags.”</p><p>“That doesn’t answer my question, Coulson.”</p><p>“We have reason to believe that the cops in Luanda are trafficking illicit substances in large quantities under the guise of diamonds,” Coulson sighed. “They’re also trafficking people.”</p><p>Clint let out a breath and sat back down. “So, drugs are enough to grab both SHIELD’s <em>and</em> Russia’s attention?”</p><p>“It’s not your average street meth,” Coulson smiled tightly. “If it were to be chemically altered, then – ”</p><p>“Yea, okay,” Clint waved him off, too tired to get into the gritty details. “You think Nat’s gonna be able to walk away from this when there’s vulnerable people involved?”</p><p>“It’s not her mission to get emotionally invested,” Coulson replied. “It’s not <em>anyone’s </em>mission to get emotionally invested.”</p><p>“We’re still going on about that, huh?” Clint scoffed. “C’mon, Coulson. It wasn’t like that.”</p><p>“I know,” Coulson admitted. “Natasha is a valuable asset. You made the right call.”</p><p>Clint closed his eyes, feeling the weariness seep into his bones. Sending Natasha into Angola <em>was </em>the logical choice, but it didn’t mean he had to like it. Especially knowing that there were people in Russia who were keeping their eyes on the same operation. If it had been up to him, he would have gone with her, if only to give her some extra security. They weren’t exclusively partners, though, and he had to remember that SHIELD could send her wherever they wanted now that she was an agent.</p><p>“I’m coming to your stupid Christmas party,” Clint said to change the subject. “The eggnog better be boozy or I’m not going to be very impressed.”</p><p>“It’s only taken, what.” Coulson paused to think, glancing at his watch as if that would give him the answer. “Four years?”</p><p>“I’m ignoring you,” Clint said. He stood up again and grabbed two pieces of pizza, heading for the door. “Keep me updated on Angola. And please, <em>please</em> don’t give me recruits again tomorrow. There’s only so much a man can take.”</p><p>“You can head up to Logistics and sign yourself onto the Angola mission.” At the look on Clint’s face, Coulson held one hand up, effectively silencing him. “If I hear one word I’ll change my mind.”</p><p>Clint grinned and shouldered his way out of the door, saluting Coulson with one of his pizza slices as he left. He stepped into the elevator, pushing the button that would take him up to the living quarters and his tiny room. He tried to ignore the warm feeling in his chest, the feeling that spread right down to his toes and made his head spin. He had never had a partner before, so he didn’t know how it felt to care for someone else’s safety so fiercely. It was weird, and yet…</p><p>Clint couldn’t wipe the grin off his face for the rest of the night.</p><p> </p><p>It wasn’t that Clint didn’t like parties. He just didn’t like getting dressed up and having to buy a gift and making small talk with people he didn’t usually talk to anyway, and for the sake of maybe getting drunk it all seemed like too much effort. He had made a deal with Natasha though, and he hadn’t been allowed to see her after her flight landed earlier in the day, so he forced himself to make some kind of effort and even picked up a bottle of wine on the walk to Coulson’s apartment.</p><p>He had only been inside Coulson’s DC apartment once, though he had been bleeding pretty heavily at the time and couldn’t really remember exactly where from, so he didn’t think it counted. By the time he arrived there were already more people there than he could count, so he ditched the wine in the kitchen and searched for either the real alcohol or someone he knew, whichever came first.</p><p>Maria was standing by the folding table. “Damn Barton. What higher powers forced you to drag your ass here?”</p><p>“Ha ha,” Clint muttered. He helped himself to some eggnog, sniffing it experimentally before taking a small sip. Plenty of bourbon, just the way he liked it. “Ever heard of the Christmas spirit, Hill?”</p><p>“Yes,” she answered primly. “I’ve been to all of Coulson’s parties. You, on the other hand…”</p><p>Clint snorted. “You’re blessed to be in my presence then, aren’t you?”</p><p>“I wouldn’t call it blessed,” Coulson said from behind him. He wasn’t wearing a suit but it still felt like he was wearing a suit. Clint didn’t know how he did it. “Boozy enough for you?”</p><p>“It’s the only way to drink it,” Clint replied. “You seen Romanoff yet?”</p><p>“Checked her into medical when she landed,” Coulson said. He looked pointedly at Clint, raising an eyebrow. “She’s not allowed to drink tonight.”</p><p>“What happened?” Clint frowned. “I was only offline for like, 24 hours.”</p><p>“That’s plenty of time for Romanoff to get herself into trouble,” Maria joked. She punched his arm half-heartedly and then waved her hand around the room. “C’mon, you can ask her when she gets here. I want to see you <em>mingle</em>.”</p><p>She shoved him until he was away from the table, then led him over to a group of agents that Clint recognised but couldn’t remember the names of. He hovered at the edge of the group and made non-committal noises here and there, only half-listening to what everyone was saying while he tried to find an excuse to go and grab more alcohol.  He could hear Christmas carols playing softly in the background, and Coulson had even hung a sprig of mistletoe. SHIELD’s anti-fraternisation policy obviously didn’t apply during the festive season.</p><p>It was a little weird, to finally be at a Christmas party after all these years. It didn’t escape his notice that his opinions about Christmas had only changed because he had been forced to spend it with Natasha last year, and making things normal for her had also, <em>kind of</em>, made it normal for him, too. Even though he wasn’t really enjoying himself, he had to admit that it was still nice, at least. Normal and nice. It almost felt like a fever dream.</p><p>“Holy shit, would you get a load of Romanoff?”</p><p>The voice cut through Clint’s thoughts, and he turned with the rest of the group to see Natasha standing in the doorway with Coulson, wearing a short black dress that did nothing to hide the array of bruises that trailed from her jaw down across her collarbone. It was the first time he had seen her all week and she looked gorgeous, but she also looked like shit, and Clint was definitely focusing more on the shit part.</p><p>“Shut up,” Maria groaned. “I swear to god, Evans. Get your mind out of the gutter.”</p><p>“I’m just saying that I wouldn’t mind her putting me in a headlock if she was wearing <em>that</em>,” Evans laughed, elbowing the agent beside him. “How much do you think it takes to get the Black Widow wasted?”</p><p>Clint spun around to face them. “Shut your fucking trap, Evans. Don’t you have a wife at home?”</p><p>“You suck at small talk,” Maria muttered, but Clint was already moving away from the circle, ditching his glass on a side table as he made his way through the crowd towards Natasha and Coulson.</p><p>They were standing together in the kitchen, speaking in low voices away from any prying eyes. Up close Natasha looked even worse, and the smattering of bruises were actually more widespread than he had realised. Three of the fingers on her right hand were splinted and her fingernails were so caked in dirt that it looked like she had crawled straight out of a hole before coming here.</p><p>“You get dressed up for me, Romanoff?” Clint teased, but it sounded flat even to him.</p><p>Natasha’s lips twitched anyway. “Don’t flatter yourself, Barton.”</p><p>“Just corrupt police, huh?” He gave her another once over and whistled lowly. “You did a number on yourself.”</p><p>“I don’t think all three fingers are broken,” Natasha grumbled, holding her hand up. “They wouldn’t let me look at the x-ray.”</p><p>“Trust me, they’re broken,” Coulson said. “Help yourself to something to eat, Natasha. I’ll be around if you need anything.”</p><p>Coulson left the two of them alone and Clint suddenly realised that he didn’t really know what he wanted to say. He felt worried, even though he could see that she was okay. Her injuries weren’t even <em>that </em>bad, but it was the fact that she had gotten injured in the first place when the mission was supposed to be simple and non-combative that made him concerned.</p><p>“You want some food?” Clint settled on. “Coulson has outdone himself.”</p><p>“Have you been here for long?” Natasha asked. She followed behind him to folding table, and Clint pretended not to notice how the other people in the room gave them a wide berth. Natasha with a band aid across her temple was probably the least threatening she had ever looked.</p><p>“Maybe like, twenty minutes,” Clint guessed. He glanced at the clock and frowned at the time. “Scratch that. It’s been an hour.”</p><p>“Medical didn’t want to clear me,” Natasha told him. “Otherwise I would have come with you.”</p><p>Clint paused and looked at her. She frowned back at him, and he didn’t know <em>what </em>he was looking for, just that there had been something in her voice that he hadn’t heard before. There was nothing now, though, just an expression that almost looked like amusement peeking out from behind her tired eyes.</p><p>“All good,” Clint said eventually, gesturing to the table. “Help yourself.”</p><p>Natasha inspected everything closely, and Clint stood by her side and glared at anyone who came close enough just so they could get a look at her dress. Not everyone cared that she was there, but he could sense that there had been a slight shift in the room when she entered, as though people either didn’t think she belonged in their midst or were too concerned with how much skin she was showing. He poured himself another cup of eggnog and forced himself to drink it all in a gulp.</p><p>“What’s that?” Natasha asked. She had finally settled on some kind of tart and was shovelling the bite-sized pieces in like no tomorrow. Clint couldn’t help but roll his eyes, because some things just never changed.</p><p>“Eggnog. It’s like alcoholic milk but it’s also got egg in it,” Clint explained. “Disgusting, but it’s the only alcohol Coulson has except for wine. You want some?”</p><p>He remembered belatedly that Coulson had told him that Natasha wasn’t allowed to drink, but the excitement on her face convinced him. He poured her a glass and passed it to her, watching eagerly to see her first reaction.</p><p>“It’s good,” Natasha murmured. She had a creamy moustache above her lip that made Clint laugh. “What? Is it not supposed to be good?”</p><p>“It’s trash,” Clint wheezed. “But you have milk on your face.”</p><p>She wiped her lip, then tipped her head back and drank the rest of the glass. Clint stopped laughing and shook his head when she tried to pass it back to him for more. “You’re not supposed to be drinking.”</p><p>“I wasn’t supposed to get hurt, either,” she retorted, and there was enough venom in her voice that Clint decided to throw caution to the wind and just give her what she wanted. She had eaten something, at least, so it probably wouldn’t end that badly.</p><p>“Wanna sit somewhere?” Clint asked, even though he couldn’t really see any space that wasn’t already occupied. “We could probably bully someone into giving us a chair.”</p><p>Natasha cast her eyes over the room, then looked pointedly at the window. “It’s very crowded in here.”</p><p>Clint thought that this was probably Natasha trying to tell him something. He squinted at the window, feeling his ears warm as the eggnog finally started to have some kind of effect on him. He was usually pretty good at reading Natasha’s subtle hints, but the more he stared out at the city lights the more he drew a blank.</p><p>“It is,” he agreed slowly. “Wish Coulson had a balcony, or…”</p><p>Natasha gave him a look. Clint shook his head and smiled, finally getting her point. He started to load up a paper plate with the tarts she had been eating, then handed it to her so he could quickly weave his way to the kitchen to retrieve the wine he had brought with him. By the time he was back Natasha had poured herself another glass of eggnog and was already finished with the second one he had given her.</p><p>He hadn’t really seen this side of her before, though he could recognise the look in her eyes. It made the hair on the back of his neck prickle, the room suddenly charged with electricity. He needed to ask her what had happened in Angola but wasn’t really sure where to begin.</p><p>She followed him over to the window and out to the fire escape, squeezing herself beside him and dangling her legs over the edge. Clint balanced the plate of tarts on his lap and opened the wine, letting the cold air wash over him and bring some sense back into his head. Natasha helped herself to a tart and turned her head up to the sky, hair falling in loose waves down her back.</p><p>“Forgot about the fire escape,” Clint said sheepishly. “Feels good to get some fresh air, even if it’s freezing.”</p><p>“It was hot in Angola,” Natasha murmured. “I didn’t like it.”</p><p>Clint took a swig from the bottle and passed it over to her. “Doesn’t look like someone liked <em>you</em> much in Angola.”</p><p>Natasha stared out over the street, gripping the neck of the wine bottle with her good hand. The bruises were deep blue and yellow under the lights inside; out here, with the faint glow from the city casting shadows over her face, they looked like a galaxy spread across her chest. Clint fought the urge to touch it, to feel her cool skin beneath his fingers.</p><p>“Coulson told you about the Russians,” she said eventually.</p><p>He glanced at her. “Yea, he might’ve mentioned it.”</p><p>“It was nothing,” Natasha said. She had a mouthful of wine and scrunched her nose up slightly at the taste. “I bet them to it.”</p><p>“They shouldn’t have sent you anyway. I’m sure they could have found someone else.”</p><p>“Are you saying I can't take care of myself?” Natasha asked. She had another swig of the wine before handing it back to him and swapping to her eggnog. “I’ve had far worse than this, Clint.”</p><p>“Nah, just…” he trailed off, unsure of how to word what he was thinking. “Have you slept, Nat?”</p><p>It wasn’t what he really wanted to say, but it was the safer option. He watched as Natasha’s face closed off and sighed, already knowing what her answer would be. It was subtle, with Natasha, but he knew her well enough to notice now. He ate a tart and chased it with some wine, swinging his feet in the air.</p><p>“No,” she admitted softly. He felt her shiver and glanced at her, watching as she squeezed her eyes shut. “Not since Monday, but I can't remember what day it is.”</p><p>“It’s Sunday,” Clint told her. “I’m missing out on Dog Cops for this party, you know.”</p><p>Natasha let out a deep breath. “Christmas Eve. I wish they wouldn’t look at me like that.”</p><p>“Beat ‘em all up,” Clint suggested. “Then they won't look at you like anything other than an agent.”</p><p>“It’s not that easy,” Natasha muttered drily. “I just thought it might be fun.”</p><p>She threw back the rest of her eggnog, then took the wine from him and drank for longer than Clint could count. He winced, suddenly concerned that maybe Coulson had told him not to let her drink for a reason, though it seemed pretty pointless now. It wouldn’t be the first time an agent had mixed alcohol and antibiotics; Clint had done it himself more times than he could count, and so far, he had turned out okay.</p><p>“We can still have fun,” Clint said. “I wasn’t kidding when I said we can smuggle a tree into Coulson’s office.”</p><p>“Where would we even get a tree?” Natasha said.</p><p>Clint grinned. “I have my ways.”</p><p>He watched the micro expressions on Natasha’s face, waiting to see what she would decide. The ball was in her court, like always; she just had to say the words, and he would follow her anywhere.</p><p>“Tell me more about the tree.”</p><p> </p><p>Between her three broken fingers and slightly intoxicated state, Natasha made a bad tree carrier. Clint groaned as she dropped the top again, giving her a pointed look from where he stood holding the trunk. Natasha bit her lip, eyes going wide as he indicated for her to grab her half again.</p><p>“This is harder than you said it would be,” she muttered. She shook out her right hand, then used her left to lift the top of the tree and cradle it in the crook of her arm. “If I get a splinter I’m not going to be happy.”</p><p>“Think a splinter is the least of your worries,” Clint muttered to himself. “We just gotta get it in the elevator, then it’ll be smooth sailing.”</p><p>It took them another twenty minutes to move from the front door to the elevator, and by then Clint was kind of regretting his idea. They crammed the tree in and he sent himself up with it, dragging it towards Coulson’s office on his own whilst the elevator returned with Natasha. It was unsettling to see the Triskelion so empty, and the quiet halls only made the sound of their grunts that much more pronounced.</p><p>Natasha picked the lock one-handed and then they finally, mercifully, had the tree inside the office. Clint shrugged out of his jacket and the two of them pushed and pulled until the tree was leaning against the wall behind Coulson’s desk. He didn’t have a stand, so they tipped out a box of old mission reports and used that instead, trying in vain to get the tree to stay straight and look at least a little better than the one they had last year.</p><p>Natasha sat down and leant back on her elbows, squinting up at it. “I think it looks great.”</p><p>It didn’t, but Clint was far too tired to argue. “Just need the decorations. I guess I’ll go get them.”</p><p>Natasha didn’t say anything, so Clint left the office and headed for Storage, sure that he could find something there that they could make work. Surprisingly, there actually <em>were</em> Christmas decorations catalogued; he found some lights and tinsel that had seen better days, but there were no baubles or anything they could actually hang. He took what he could get, feeling the weariness seep into his bones again now that the wine was beginning to wear off.</p><p>“I found some things,” he offered when he was back inside the office. Natasha was cutting something into paper, but her eyes lit up when she saw the tinsel. “There was probably more, but Storage is big.”</p><p>“I made an angel for the top.” She pointed to the top of the tree, where a paper angel had been stuck to the highest branch. “And there’s this.”</p><p>She unfolded the paper she was cutting and Clint couldn’t help but gasp. She had cut a snowflake into the paper, somehow turning it into something that looked real and tangible, something that looked like it would melt in the palm of his hand. He didn’t know how she did it, couldn’t find the words in his muddled, tipsy brain to tell her how amazing it was. He just nodded like an idiot, cheeks warming from something that wasn’t quite embarrassment.</p><p>They decorated in silence, draping tinsel and hanging paper snowflakes with elastic bands. It felt familiar, having Natasha beside him, her small hand occasionally brushing his as she passed him snowflake after snowflake. He didn’t know if it was because they were partners now and he had to be aware of her presence for his own safety, or if there was something else, some other kind of familiarity that was more <em>friendship </em>than <em>partnership</em>. Did he consider Natasha his friend now?</p><p>Clint abandoned the lights when he realised they wouldn’t reach a power point, and then the two of them stood back and admired their handiwork. The tree was odd-looking; the green needles stood out in stark contrast to the white paper snowflakes, and the gold tinsel made everything shimmer just enough. Natasha had drawn a face on the angel that looked suspiciously like Fury, eyepatch and all.</p><p>“We did good,” Clint said around a yawn. No one had seen them sneak down the fire escape and leave the party, though their absence would surely be noticed by now. “I need a drink.”</p><p>“We should have brought the eggnog with us,” Natasha murmured forlornly. “Then we could have our own party.”</p><p>“I think I’m gonna have to call it a night,” Clint admitted. “And <em>you </em>should definitely be sleeping for the next 24 hours.”</p><p>Natasha shrugged but led the way to the door. “I’m fine.”</p><p>Clint knew that she would say that, though he could see that she wasn’t really fine at all. In the harsh light of Coulson’s office she couldn’t hide the way her body trembled just slightly, or the dark, heavy bags under her eyes. She looked much like she had the first day on the farm last year: lost and vulnerable.</p><p>“You gonna be okay to get to your room?” he asked, then mentally kicked himself for sounding so lame, but Natasha just shrugged again.</p><p>“What’s an empty hallway against an angry Russian operative?”</p><p>Clint frowned. “That could’ve gone a lot worse.”</p><p>“It didn’t, though,” Natasha replied. They entered the elevator and shot straight to her floor, and she turned to look at him one last time before the doors slid shut. “I’ve got better aim.”</p><p>His response was swallowed by the elevator doors closing, and before he knew it he was in front of his own room with no real recollection of getting there. He thought about turning around and going back to her floor but couldn’t come up with a good enough excuse. He shook the image of her bruised body out of his mind and walked straight to the bathroom, ready to let the warm spray of the shower clear his head.</p><p> </p><p>Clint almost didn’t hear the knock on the door. He was seconds away from diving under the covers and falling into blissful sleep, perfectly okay with ignoring whoever would be at his door at this hour until he remembered the one person it <em>would </em>be. He took a deep breath and tried to mentally prepare for whatever Natasha would throw at him now, swinging the door open before he was really ready to face her.</p><p>“I forgot your diamond.”</p><p>Clint blinked at her. She frowned slightly, her forehead crinkling in confusion, and he quickly ushered her in before she changed her mind and left. He had forgotten about the diamond, lost the thought of it somewhere between finding out about the Russian’s involvement and actually seeing Natasha in front of him again, but now it all slammed back into his mind. He had upheld his end of the deal, and now Natasha was going to give him an <em>actual </em>diamond so that she wouldn’t owe him anything.</p><p>“Diamond?” he repeated. “You didn’t really have to get me a diamond, god.”</p><p>Natasha held out a little parcel to him. “Technically it’s Christmas now, so Merry Christmas Clint.”</p><p>A quick glance at his alarm clock told him that it was indeed past midnight now. He accepted the gift from her and sat on his bed, patting the space next to him until she sat beside him. Her fingers twitched in her lap as he opened it, her tell-tale sign of excitement making him excited, too. He didn’t need a diamond, though he was sure he could find something to do with it.</p><p>The first thing that fell from the wrapping paper was a plastic candy package, and Clint couldn’t help the burst of laughter that escaped his mouth. “Oh my god. It’s even better than a diamond.”</p><p>“They had them at the airport,” Natasha told him. The Ring Pop was grape flavoured and almost the size of her palm. “I had one myself. They’re delicious.”</p><p>“Thanks, Nat,” he said. He found another piece of paper inside the wrapping, and when he unfolded it he had to pause and make sure he could speak before he actually tried to. “Oh wow. This is…”</p><p>Natasha had given him another painting. It was the interior of Coulson’s office, with the two of them sitting in front of a tree, Natasha wearing the dress that she had actually worn that night. The tree was far more magnificent than the one they had left for their handler in real life, and stuck to the top like a star was a tiny, sparkly diamond.  </p><p>“I could have brought you a bigger one, but – ”</p><p>“This is amazing,” Clint cut her off. “I… I didn’t expect you to actually… Wow. You’re amazing.”</p><p>Natasha smiled softly. “I’m glad you like it.”</p><p>“Actually,” Clint said, setting the painting aside carefully. He reached under his bed, fingers searching until he felt the shape of the gift that he had bought for her, and he yanked it out with a flourish. “Don’t think I forgot your gift. And it’s even wrapped properly this time.”</p><p>Natasha held the gift on her lap for a moment, then began to gently tease the sticky tape away from the paper. Clint kind of wanted her to rip into it, but whilst she was distracted it gave him a chance to look at the detail in the painting. It was like she had seen the night play out before it had, albeit a few details were different than she had imagined. He couldn’t believe her talent, and kind of wanted to parade it around SHIELD to show people that she <em>was </em>more than just the killer they believed her to be.</p><p>“Oh,” he heard her say softly. “Wow.”</p><p>“Do you like it?” Clint asked, suddenly nervous.</p><p>Natasha nodded fiercely. “Thank you, Clint.”</p><p>He had found a Russian copy of the Snow Queen in a little second-hand bookstore in New York. He didn’t really know the story, but the illustrations were stunning and even he could appreciate a nice book when he saw one. The fact that it was in Russian was just an added bonus.</p><p>“Merry Christmas, Natasha,” he said to her. “I’m glad you were back in time to celebrate it.”</p><p>Natasha didn’t say anything, though Clint could sense that she wanted to. She didn’t move either, not even when Clint stood up to put the painting in his side table for safe keeping. He scrunched the wrapping paper up and shoved it in the bin, then stood in front of her, waiting to see what her next move would be.</p><p>“There were people,” she began, and clenched her good hand into a fist. “They were being trafficked.”</p><p>“Coulson told me,” Clint said gently. “You can't help everyone, Natasha. It wasn’t the mission.”</p><p>“I should have tried harder,” Natasha snapped. “I could have found the time.”</p><p>“And then what? What happens next?” Clint smiled at her softly, watching her lower lip tremble. “You did what you needed to do. I don’t think Coulson will leave those people there, okay? We can ask him about it next week.”</p><p>Natasha sagged into herself, as though Clint had knocked the fight out of her. He <em>would</em> ask Coulson about the people that were being abused because it didn’t sit right with him either, and SHIELD would be more than capable of sending another team in for an extraction. Her mission hadn’t been a good idea from the beginning though he figured that not even Coulson would have thought of all of the ramifications, since Clint was the only one who could apparently make any sense of how Natasha functioned.</p><p>“I… I couldn’t sleep,” she whispered eventually. “I had headaches. What if I slept and ran? What if I – ”</p><p>“It’s not gonna happen,” Clint assured her. “Psych is working on it, okay? You have to sleep or you’ll get sick.”</p><p>Natasha was basically vibrating. “I wanted to. I did. But – ”</p><p>Clint opened his arms, realising with a start that Natasha wouldn’t have had any positive contact since before she had left for Angola. Psych didn’t think it would last forever, were certain that one day she wouldn’t need the contact to feel okay, but for now she did need it and Clint was the only person who could help. He gave her a knowing look, wiggling his fingers as though he could entice her.</p><p>Natasha stood and all but fell into him, the fingers of her good hand balling into the material of his shirt. He held her against him, felt the deep sigh that left her body like a prayer; held her until he couldn’t really be sure where she started and he ended. She pushed her face into his chest, shoulders shaking even though there were no tears. He felt the pain as strongly as if it were his own.</p><p>“Just stay here,” Clint murmured into her hair. He took a step forward, walking her backwards until they could crawl onto the bed. She immediately reached for him again, burying her head under his chin, pinning his body to her. “I won't let you run, Nat.”</p><p>He couldn’t get up to turn the light off so resigned himself to somewhat of a restless night. Natasha was warm, her splinted fingers heavy on his side. It was too much, he had told Coulson before. Too much of <em>weird </em>and not enough normal, but maybe he had been looking at it wrong. Maybe this was their normal, for now; sleep walking and touch and all of the little things that couldn’t be said yet. Maybe it wasn’t weird for Natasha to like falling asleep in his arms. Maybe it was just survival.</p><p>At the end of the day, it was all survival, and he cared too much to let her run. They could make a new normal. They just had to be willing to try.</p><p> </p>
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<a name="section0003"><h2>3. 2007</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>chapter 3 aka christmas in australia aka the ONLY chapter i didn't have to google anything for bc i live here lmaooo. i absolutrly adore this chapter (maybe im biased idk) bc i think christmas in summer is so beautiful and fun and i honestly couldn't imagine it any other way so ofc i had to let clint and nat experience that!! even if australia is a bit Much for clint </p><p>warnings: ngl there's talk of major character death in this chapter IM SORRY!! also general injury talk, budapest and vegemite</p><p>i really hope you like this update 🥺 i threw a bunch of classic aussie things in here just for fun (vegemite being the main one bc im a hoe for that spread) and even tho we still have some ~angst~  it's just a bunch of fun so on that note: thank you for reading!! ❤️</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
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    <strong>2007</strong>
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</blockquote><p> </p><p>“Oh, sweet Jesus, why does it have to be so fucking <em>hot</em>?”</p><p>Clint threw himself face down on the bed, not caring that he would make the sheets sweaty again. They were always sweaty, despite the fact that they left the aircon blasting all day and night, and Clint honestly couldn’t remember a time when he was actually just comfortable. It wasn’t even like he was the biggest fan of the cold, but this –</p><p>“Hell,” he moaned into his pillow. “This is hell.”</p><p>He heard Natasha close the curtains and walk into the bathroom, then the sound of water running from the tap. He knew he needed to call Coulson and give him the last of their intel, but he couldn’t remember what time it would be in America and wasn’t in the mood to deal with potentially waking Coulson up. Not that their handler didn’t deserve to be disrupted; sending them on this mission felt a lot like punishment they hadn’t done anything to warrant.</p><p>He heard Natasha exit the bathroom, then felt the dip of the bed as she sat by his waist. A second later, cold water began trickling down the back of his neck, and after the initial shock wore off he relaxed into the mattress and felt his core body temperature drop significantly. The sheets were <em>definitely </em>wet now. He couldn’t find it in him to care.</p><p>“You’re amazing,” he said. “I ever tell you how amazing you are?”</p><p>“Not nearly enough,” Natasha said. He heard her re-cap the water bottle, then a sigh that sounded more frazzled than she probably intended. “I need to take my clothes off.”</p><p>“Okay,” Clint mumbled, eyes half-closed in bliss. He could feel the aircon on the back of his legs, so shuffled his way down the bed until he could lie with his head directly in range of the air and rest his feet on the pillow. “Need a hand?”</p><p>Natasha scoffed. “Mine are fine.”</p><p>“They weren’t last week,” Clint quipped. He turned and watched her pull her shirt gingerly over her head, eyes softening as he took in the still healing bruises that covered her back like a map. “You sure?”</p><p>“I’m fine,” Natasha replied. She shimmied out of her shorts and lay down in her bra and underwear on her own bed like a starfish. “I barely feel it now.”</p><p>Clint rolled his eyes. “Could’ve fooled me.”</p><p>It didn’t escape his notice that this was the second Christmas in a row that Natasha had some pretty serious injuries, though this time he knew the story, and it didn’t feel like a good thing; knowing felt more like a burden, like something that would sit on his shoulders and weigh him down for a while. It had been <em>their</em> mission, after all.</p><p>Their mission with the botched extraction, because they didn’t need a plan, they <em>never </em>needed a plan, except for the one time they did. And they could have gotten away with it, Clint knew that. They had been <em>so close </em>to getting away with it. But they couldn’t have predicted the building caving in, couldn’t have predicted that they would be trapped under the rubble for hours before Coulson found them. Natasha had taken the brunt of it, somehow, and Clint had been concussed enough that all he could remember clearly was clinging to her hand and assuring her that she wouldn’t die buried under concrete.</p><p>Not many things haunted Clint, and that was what made him a good agent. Except now when he closed his eyes all he could see was Natasha, lips bloody, begging him to get her out of there. Her memory of Budapest ended long before the building collapse, and for once he was glad. He wanted to forget, too. Wanted to forget the look in her eyes, the grey-sheen of her skin, the way her hand had gone slack in his towards the end; the way she hadn’t responded when he screamed at her, even when his voice went hoarse and his cries turned to whispers.</p><p>Despite it all, they were alive for another Christmas. Being sent to Australia for simple recon wasn’t how he had planned on spending it, but he wasn’t about to pass up some free vacation time. Coulson had given them a week, probably out of pity or maybe because he thought they deserved it after Budapest, and Clint had originally planned to spend every second at the beach until he realised how hot it was. Staying indoors with Natasha sounded like a much better idea.</p><p>Problem was, spending time with Natasha now meant something different after Budapest. The issue wasn’t in actually <em>spending time with her</em>, because somehow over the last however many months she had become his best friend, but he hadn’t really realised at first that it was becoming something else too; that he relied on her, trusted her, <em>cared for her</em>, sometimes more than he did himself. It was subtle at first, like everything with Natasha was, but it <em>was</em> there, and he knew that subtlety only lasted so long.</p><p>He had tried to be with other people to see if whatever he was feeling was just a result of close proximity, like some kind of weird Stockholm syndrome that he couldn’t quite shake, and for the most part he had enjoyed it. Until he didn’t and it ended, and all he was left with were some angry voicemails and confusion that sat heavy in his stomach. Clint liked dating; he just, apparently, now liked it <em>more </em>if the person he could date was Natasha.</p><p>“I think Coulson hates us,” Natasha mumbled. Clint jolted at the sound of her voice, coming back into his body with an intensity that left him winded. He sat up and reached for his water bottle, needing to clear his head. “This isn’t fun.”</p><p>“It’s supposed to be a vacation,” Clint reminded her. “I don’t think even Coulson could have predicted the hottest summer on record.”</p><p>“I like Australia,” Natasha said. “It’s salty.”</p><p>Clint blinked at her. “Have a drink. I think you’re dehydrated.”</p><p>“I’m not,” she reassured him, turning her head so she could see him. “I can prove it.”</p><p>“I’m not looking at your pee, Romanoff,” Clint said. “I believe you.” </p><p>Natasha grinned at him lazily. Clint’s chest filled with warmth and he looked away quickly, letting his gaze focus on the ceiling instead. He <em>was </em>trying to deal with it, was trying not to get caught up in her eyes and the laughter he was sometimes lucky enough to hear, because they were supposed to be partners and they had somehow gone from that to friends to <em>this</em>, whatever this was. He had never imagined that bringing Natasha to America would lead here, almost three years and too many bruises later. He had never expected to have to distract himself from staring at her lips when she spoke.</p><p>Clint didn’t know if Natasha suspected anything. It was hard to know what she was thinking, even though he knew her better than anyone else. Her poker face was the best he had seen and if he didn’t know any better he would still think that she just didn’t have normal emotions. Except she did have them, and they were intense in her own way, and it was one of the things he loved about her if he let himself <em>really</em> think about it. He only loved Dog Cops and coffee and, apparently, the way she scrunched her nose up when he said something stupid. Amusement looked a lot like annoyance on Natasha’s face.</p><p>“Should we get room service?” Clint asked, mainly to get his mind off wherever it was going but also because he was actually starting to get hungry. The room felt like a suitable enough temperature now that eating wouldn’t cause heat stroke. “I’m thinking shrimp. Or something else that’s delicious.”</p><p>“They’re called prawns here,” Natasha told him pointedly. “Besides, we’re going to the beach.”</p><p>“What?” Clint groaned. He was glad that Natasha could mostly make decisions now, but her new way of just telling him what they were doing was tiring. “It’s too hot, Nat.”</p><p>“It’s a vacation,” Natasha stressed. “You said so yourself.”</p><p>“I don’t want to <em>melt </em>on my vacation though,” Clint replied. “You remember what it was like out there an hour ago? And we were in the <em>shade</em>!”</p><p>“Beach,” Natasha insisted. She stood up and stretched and Clint kept his eyes firmly trained on the ceiling. “I have a new bikini.”</p><p>“<em>Bikini?</em>” Clint wheezed. He felt Natasha’s confusion and immediately tried to backtrack. “It’s way too sunny. You’ll burn, woman.”</p><p>It was a lame excuse. He knew that she knew it was a lame excuse. Thankfully, she saved him the embarrassment of having to explain his reaction by shrugging her shoulders. “Isn’t that what sunscreen’s for?”</p><p>Clint’s brain short-circuited. Natasha let herself into the bathroom, closing the door and giving him a few precious minutes to get his shit together. He knew Natasha had bought a new bikini because she had been talking about it in her sleep all week, but he hadn’t really expected to see it. He distracted himself by digging through his duffle in search of his own swimming trunks. He couldn’t argue her logic; he <em>had </em>wanted a vacation.</p><p>When Natasha re-emerged, Clint quickly forgot about his concern over seeing the bikini, because the bikini was just like her underwear and did nothing to hide the evidence of their trip to Budapest. He swallowed against the jab of pain that shot through him when he saw the bruises on her chest, the still-healing pink flesh from where the defibrillator had burnt her. When he closed his eyes he saw  the scrapes that covered her legs; her legs, somehow not broken despite the beam that was slowly crushing her.  </p><p>He felt the bed dip again. “I have…”</p><p>Natasha pressed the sunscreen bottle against his hand. He took it from her automatically, then opened his eyes to find her watching him carefully. He thought he knew what she was asking, and gave the bottle a little shake, as though to give her the push that she needed. He wanted to hear her say it. He <em>needed </em>to hear her say it.</p><p>“Can… can you,” Natasha started, then huffed in frustration. Her hands shook and Clint thought back to the farm, back to her therapy, back to every instance that resulted in meltdowns instead of questions.</p><p>He smiled. “Can I what? Read your mind?”</p><p>Psych thought they had her down pat, but Clint knew better. She glared, punching him in the shoulder. “Can you do my back, asshole?”</p><p>“Course I can,” Clint replied. Natasha turned her back to him and he forced himself to keep his eyes on the deep purple and red marks, even though it made his stomach turn. He could see the epicentre of the impact like a bomb had broken her apart; like it was a bomb that had done this to them, ripped her right out of his arms, had forced him to choke on her last breath like the air was his to take.</p><p>Budapest <em>had</em> taken from them. Clint felt it significantly now, sitting behind her on a hotel bed in Australia. It was pressing, the weight of caring. He felt it like a monsoon, felt the impending rain before it came, felt every drop that battered his skin with worry and fear. Budapest had done this to them: created a chasm that couldn’t be filled with anything but a truth he wasn’t ready to admit yet.</p><p>“Gonna be cold,” Clint warned her. He squirted some of the sunscreen on his hand, then gently brushed his fingers over her shoulder blade, expecting her flinch but not the ache in his chest. He swallowed and moved to the back of her neck. “Tell me if it hurts.”</p><p>Natasha grunted. Clint figured he probably wouldn’t get a verbal response from her when she was in such a vulnerable position, so moved his fingers in a circle to disperse some of the cream. Natasha’s skin was smooth where it wasn’t bruised, cool and creamy and soft. He moved back to her left side and used his thumb to rub the sunscreen over the slope of her shoulder, grazing across her collarbone.</p><p>She exhaled shakily, the sound of it reverberating in his chest. He was suddenly hyper aware of his hands as he spread the cream across to her right shoulder, his touch feather-light as he reached the first bruise. He rubbed in a small circle, watched as deep blue turned slightly lighter, kept rubbing until her skin was shimmery in the light. He let out a breath and watched goose bumps rise across the fine hair on the back of her neck.</p><p>Clint had always considered his hands to be weapons. It came with the job, and he had accepted the calluses and dirt long ago. Using them like this, Natasha <em>letting </em>him use them like this, made his head swim and his body prickle; made him realise that the last however many years were unimportant, that his hands were not weapons but <em>tools</em>. Tools that could make Natasha melt into his touch, could make her sigh and unravel just a little.</p><p>He squeezed some of the sunscreen onto his palm and continued his path down her back, taking in inch after inch of skin, brushing his fingers over her sides and into the dip of her lower back. Part of him didn’t want to let her burn, and he told himself that was the only reason he took extra care covering the skin beneath her bikini strap. It had nothing to do with the soft noise she made as his thumb grazed the side of her ribs.</p><p>Clint was frazzled, his breathing heavier than it had been minutes or hours ago, whenever they had sat down to do this. He wanted to touch her again, wanted to know more of that skin, the soft and secret places of her that no one had been privy to. Her hand brushed his as she took the bottle from him and he jolted like he had been electrocuted, felt the tremors right down to his toes.</p><p>Natasha’s cheeks were slightly pink. “Your turn.”</p><p>“I’m good,” Clint said quickly, scrambling away from her with far less grace than he had imagined. Every inch of his body felt like it had been doused in petrol and he knew one more touch would set him alight. “I don’t have your delicate complexion.”</p><p>“You’re impossible,” Natasha quipped, but didn’t push him. She pulled a pale-yellow sundress from her own bag and stepped into it, then dumped a floppy hat unceremoniously over her head and grinned at him. “Let’s go.”</p><p>Clint let her drive them to the beach, not quite accustomed to Australian roads yet but also not quite recovered from whatever had just happened in the hotel room. Natasha hadn’t stopped him from pushing his luck, had even seemed to <em>enjoy </em>his fingers ghosting over her skin, and if he thought about it for too long it started making sense in a way he hadn’t been prepared for. He wound down the window and stuck his head out, tried to see if he could taste the same saltiness that she could.</p><p>She took them to a secluded beach a short drive from Noosa Heads. Even if the weather wasn’t on their side, Clint had to give it to Coulson; Noosa was nice, affluent and exactly the kind of place someone could launder money out of without drawing too much attention to themselves. As far as missions went, gathering intel had been a breeze, and now they had a week in paradise, even if paradise felt a little bit more emotionally charged now.</p><p>“Will you swim?” Natasha asked.</p><p>Clint hopped from one foot to the other, waiting for her to drop the picnic rug on the hot sand. “Maybe. Might sit here for a minute first.”</p><p>He wanted to swim, but he also didn’t want to be swimming with Natasha when his thoughts were scrambled and she was wearing a bikini. She considered him a moment, then took her hat and dress off and wandered down to the shore herself. He was glad for the privacy along this stretch of beach because he could shove his fist in his mouth and scream and no one would hear.</p><p>He watched her for a while, then pulled his shirt off and used her bag to pillow his head so he could close his eyes for a minute. The sun was warm on his back, the sound of the waves blocking out all of the other noise until he felt relaxed enough to join her. He considered it, digging his fingers into the sand.</p><p>Clint woke up with a start, scrambling to his feet as he tried to remember where he was. Natasha raised an eyebrow from where she sat beside him and a few key pieces of information clicked into place: he was in Noosa, with Natasha, with Natasha and her bikini and the sunscreen he had almost had a meltdown over. The sunscreen that he hadn’t worn.</p><p>“You look a little red,” Natasha commented. “I tried to wake you but you sleep like the dead.”</p><p>Clint inhaled sharply. “I sleep like a normal, living person.”</p><p>Natasha frowned and looked away. Clint’s back did feel kind of hot, so he took off towards the water at a jog, sinking into its depths when he was out far enough to swim. He floated for a while, licking salty droplets from his lips every now and then. Seagulls flew across his vision and if he squinted he could see Natasha’s hair like a beacon on the shore.</p><p>By the time he made it back to her it was late, so they packed up and headed into the township for dinner. Clint bought Natasha a Bubble O’Bill and put up with her popping her gum all the way back just so she wouldn’t talk to him, and by the time she was in the shower he was ready to just call it a night and forget that the afternoon had ever happened.</p><p>Coulson rang as he was crawling into bed. “Your face is red.”</p><p>“Not really,” Clint grimaced, even though his back was still burning against the mattress. “The Aussie sun is something else, Coulson.”</p><p>“I know,” Coulson replied. “Everything went well?”</p><p>“I’ll send you the shit tomorrow,” Clint said. “Got it all, hook, line and sinker.”</p><p>“I’ve already spoken to Natasha. She sent it earlier.”</p><p>Clint frowned, then shrugged. “Saves me the effort.”</p><p>“I’m calling to speak about something else,” Coulson said. He sounded annoyed and maybe even upset. “Have you been to therapy?”</p><p>“No, because I don’t need it,” Clint snapped, automatically defensive for reasons he didn’t even fully understand. Coulson only ever wanted the best for him and most of the time, he was right. “Trust me. I’m fine.”</p><p>“Clint,” Coulson started, and Clint could imagine him leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes, trying to keep his cool even though his voice was laced with frustration. “You watched your partner die.”</p><p>Clint felt the words like a blow to the gut. “She didn’t – ”</p><p>“She did, Barton,” Coulson interrupted. “You saw them revive her. You saw every part of it, more than we could imagine.”</p><p>Clint squeezed his eyes shut, as though it would stop the barrage of images that assaulted his mind as Coulson continued to speak. He couldn’t breathe, could feel dust and cement settling in his throat, choking him and it was silent, it was <em>so, so </em>silent, because Natasha had stopped responding and –</p><p>“She didn’t die!” he shouted, and when he opened his eyes Natasha was standing in the bathroom doorway watching him. He swallowed thickly and tried to regain some semblance of control. “It’s fine. I’m fine, Coulson. We’ll see you in another week.”</p><p>Clint hung up the phone and let it fall to the floor, then closed his eyes again and took a few deep breaths. He listened for the waves and the birds, trying to drown out everything around him. Therapy was stupid, he knew that from watching Natasha yo-yo between chaos and calm. He couldn’t remember the last time he had talked to a stranger about his feelings.</p><p>“Clint,” he heard Natasha say, her voice soft and understanding. He forced himself to look at her and the bits he didn’t want to see, all of the marks that only proved how <em>alive </em>she was. He let her climb over him and squeeze herself into his bed, ignoring the heat and the little voice that told him it might not be a good idea.</p><p>“Sorry,” he croaked. “Didn’t mean to yell.”</p><p>“Okay,” Natasha replied. She pushed her face against his chest and settled one of her hands on his cheek, moving her thumb in a slow circle. “I’m here.”</p><p>“I know,” Clint whispered. “I know you are.”</p><p>He didn’t know which of them needed it more that night, but he wasn’t ashamed to let himself cling to Natasha’s body as though it were the only thing anchoring him to Earth. She knew; she had to know, to be here now, that something was changing. It was never simple, but it was familiar. Clint let himself be lulled to sleep by the sound of her breath, realising slowly, then all at once, that <em>Natasha</em> was the last stranger he had talked to about his feelings.</p><p> </p><p>Christmas in summer was stupid. Clint told Natasha as much over breakfast, watching in disgust as she spread Vegemite over her toast. He had coffee that was actually better than any coffee he had back home, but he wasn’t sold on the idea of the salty, black condiment. Unsurprisingly, Natasha was well on her way to becoming addicted to it, and Clint could already feel the impending headache from having to help her find some when they got back.</p><p>“I told you to wear sunscreen,” Natasha said. “This could have been very easily avoided.”</p><p>“Besides the point,” Clint muttered. He waved his hand out over the balcony, indicating the already warm sun and sandy footpaths. “Christmas in summer feels all kinds of wrong. Where’s the snow? I haven’t even seen one single Christmas tree farm.”</p><p>“I doubt we would be allowed to bring a Christmas tree up here anyway,” Natasha mused. She took a bite of her toast and sighed. “I’m sure there’s snow elsewhere. Victoria, maybe.”</p><p>“Stupid,” Clint insisted. He finished his coffee and stood carefully, wincing as his shirt clung to his sunburnt back. He had barely paid any attention to the damage but had known it was bad when he had to turn the temperature of the water in the shower down. “You have any wild ideas for today?”</p><p>Natasha regarded him closely. “Should you be leaving the room?”</p><p>“It’s sunburn,” Clint scoffed. “I’ll be fine. C’mon, give me an idea before I drag us to surfing lessons.”</p><p>They eventually settled on a short drive to the Eumundi Markets, and Clint let Natasha lead him around stalls, trying to ignore the prickle of pain on his back that was slowly spreading. He lost her for a little while, though it gave him time to buy her a last-minute Christmas gift, and they ended up in a café for lunch that had a menu so long Clint could barely focus on it.</p><p>He poured himself a glass of water and chugged it, then started to pour another. “You know what you want?”</p><p>Natasha fiddled with the corner of the menu. “No.”</p><p>“I might get fish and chips,” he said, if only to prompt her. He didn’t feel like eating at all. He kind of just wanted to plunge himself into an ice bath for a few hours. “That’s very Australian, I think.”</p><p>“I might have chips,” Natasha said. She ran her finger down the front page, stopping halfway down and inspecting what she had landed on. “And… eggs benedict?”</p><p>“Yum,” Clint said. “Good choice. You’re gonna love the sauce.”</p><p>They ordered and sat watching people pass them, enjoying the cool breeze that caressed their skin and twirled the ends of Natasha’s hair in the air. Clint drank glass after glass of water, trying to stave the dizziness he was beginning to feel. He knew it was from his impromptu nap in the sun, and he couldn’t really blame anyone but himself. Once he made it through lunch he could convince Natasha to leave and then sleep the afternoon away.</p><p>He was right; Natasha loved the sauce. After the initial confusion about <em>fries </em>being called <em>chips </em>in Australia wore off, she happily dipped them in her egg yolks, eating with her fingers again because he hadn’t thought to bring the reusable cutlery. Clint’s head was pounding too strongly for him to really care. He needed to <em>leave</em>.</p><p>To her benefit, Natasha ate quickly. “You look like shit.”</p><p>“Thanks,” Clint mumbled. He trailed after her to the car, then slumped into the passenger seat and pressed his forehead against the window. “Back is sore.”</p><p>He felt the rush of the aircon against his legs, then the motion of the car pulling out of the carpark. Natasha drove a little slower on the way back, and he could feel his lunch tumbling around in his stomach every time they went around a corner. He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply through his nose.</p><p>The next thing he was aware of was Natasha draping his arm over her shoulders, throwing her weight back to haul him out of the car. He blinked against the sun and stumbled beside her into the hotel, up and up until they were in their room and she was forcing him into the shower. Her hands were firm on his chest as she made him sit, then gentle as she tugged his shirt off. He hissed as the water switched on, and then moaned when it cooled the heat coming from his back significantly. Clarity returned and he shook out his hair, grinning at her through the shower door.</p><p>“Did I fall asleep again?”</p><p>Natasha rolled her eyes, but her crossed arms over her chest told him she was worried. “No. You passed out.”</p><p>“Oh,” Clint said. “That’s not like me.”</p><p>“I told you to wear sunscreen,” Natasha stressed. “You should listen to me.”</p><p>“I will next time,” Clint assured her. “Are you going to let me get out now?”</p><p>Natasha bit her lip and then left the bathroom, shutting the door behind her. Clint sighed and waited another minute until he was sure his legs would stand up beneath him. He still felt dizzy, but the cold water had numbed most of the pain and he could kind of see why Natasha was right. All this because he couldn’t handle the feeling of her hands on his body.</p><p>He switched the shower off, struggled out of the rest of his clothes and found a pair of boxer shorts crumpled by the toilet that he was <em>fairly </em>certain were clean. He pulled them on and tried to inspect the damage to his back, but twisting sent sparks of red-hot pain up his spine and he had to grip the basin to stop himself keeling over.</p><p>Clint didn’t even look to see where Natasha was, just made a straight bee-line for his bed and fell onto it face first. Everything around him seemed dull and lifeless. He felt something prod his side and turned his head to see Natasha holding a bottle of water under his nose, her other hand clutching a tube of aloe vera.</p><p>“I’m fine,” he tried to tell her. Something in her eyes made him stop, made him lean forward until he could take the straw between his lips and swallow. He recognised the look from when it had stared him back in the mirror after Budapest.</p><p>“You have blisters,” Natasha told him. “I’m rubbing this on whether you like it or not.”</p><p>Clint was honestly too exhausted to care, and figured that since he had landed himself in this mess by not letting her apply the sunscreen in the first place, it couldn’t get much worse. “Right. This better not hurt, Romanoff.”</p><p>Natasha ignored him and squirted a generous amount of the clear ointment onto his back. The relief was instantaneous, and Clint groaned in pleasure as she carefully spread it out further, not even caring that it was probably the most embarrassing noise he had ever made. Her touch was light, air ghosting over his back, around the blisters he couldn’t feel until he couldn’t really feel anything, just the presence of her by his side.</p><p>It felt different, having her do this for him. She had patched him up on missions before, thrown a few stitches into his thigh between shooting arms dealers in the head and scaling down the side of a building, but it didn’t compare to this. This was the feeling in his chest, the look on his face, the moment when the building came down and all he could think about was <em>her</em>.</p><p>“All better,” Natasha said softly. She stood up and Clint managed to grip her wrist before she could walk away, giving her fingers a tight squeeze. “No moving for the rest of the afternoon.”</p><p>“Yes ma’am,” Clint teased, letting her go. “Thanks, Nat.”</p><p>Natasha’s lips quirked. “Drink your water, too.”</p><p>Clint closed his eyes and heard the sound of the curtain being pulled across, and then Natasha sitting back down on her own bed. He thought about inviting her for a nap too, but let the words dry up in his mouth. This time when he fell asleep, he didn’t think of Budapest; he only thought of the way her fingers had lingered on his back and how he wished they could stay there for just a little longer, too.</p><p> </p><p>They spent Christmas Eve indoors, keeping the curtains pulled across and watching reruns of Neighbours. He laid in bed and let her apply more aloe vera whenever she felt like it, still feeling the effects of what he was starting to believe had been some kind of heat stroke. He made a mental note to tell Coulson just how terribly the Australian summer had treated him.</p><p>Natasha left for lunch and returned with a branch, big enough that Clint genuinely questioned how she had dragged it unnoticed through the lobby. He could smell the Eucalyptus immediately and scrunched his nose up against the slight burn, though Natasha seemed unphased. She leant the branch against the wall and stood back to admire her handiwork with her hands on her hips.</p><p>“Looks good,” he offered.</p><p>“It’s Christmas,” Natasha said. “You have to have a tree on Christmas.”</p><p>Clint snorted and pushed himself off the bed so he could get a closer look. It was just a branch, nothing special or fancy about it, but Natasha had dragged it here for a reason and he wasn’t about to tease her for it. There wasn’t much room for any decorations, though he thought the green leaves were kind of nice enough on their own.</p><p>Natasha pulled a packet of tinsel out of her handbag. “We’re decorating it.”</p><p>“Right,” Clint drawled. “Did you get something for the top?”</p><p>“Of course,” Natasha replied. She dug around in her handbag and pulled out a stuffed koala toy, tossing it to him so that she could refocus on the tinsel. “It’s a koala.”</p><p>“I know,” Clint said. He smiled to himself and sat the toy at the top of the branch, arranging the leaves around it. “Cute, Romanoff.”</p><p>“Koalas eat eucalyptus,” Natasha told him. “They sleep for 18 hours. It reminded me of you.”</p><p>Clint blinked. “In what way?”</p><p>“You sleep a lot too,” she shrugged. “More than anyone I’ve met.”</p><p>“Huh,” Clint said. He couldn’t argue with her logic, even if it wasn’t what he had been expecting. “Alright then.”</p><p>They strung the tinsel around the branch and then ate burgers with the lot, sitting on the floor to try and prevent staining the bedspread with beetroot. Natasha ignored his protests and started the mission report early, so he took a couple of Cherry Ripes from her bag and sat out on the balcony in the shade. He liked watching the people walk below him, liked picking up on their little habits that they probably didn’t even realise they were doing. He wondered, briefly, what it would be like to walk around like that.</p><p>“Finished,” Natasha said, coming to sit in the chair beside his. She was glowing, her hair lit by the rays from the sinking sun. “I did yours, too.”</p><p>Clint raised an eyebrow. “Coulson will think I’m coercing you.”</p><p>“Coulson knows that you couldn’t do that,” Natasha replied simply. “You’ve never been able to manipulate me, Clint. You’re too good.”</p><p>“You flatter me,” he joked as he felt colour flood to his cheeks.</p><p>Natasha shook her head. “It’s just the truth.”</p><p>Clint didn’t let himself think too much about Natasha’s words, or the fact that she had bought a koala because it somehow reminded her of him. It might not mean much at all, he knew that logically, but for Natasha actions were louder than words and this was just enough to convince him that maybe <em>whatever </em>he was feeling wasn’t as one-sided as he thought.</p><p>“You’re not that bad yourself, Romanoff,” he said softly.</p><p>Natasha’s lips twisted into a grimace. “I have a lot of blood on my hands. It’s hard to see past that much red.”</p><p>“I see you exactly the way you are,” Clint said, and Natasha scoffed.</p><p>“A monster?”</p><p>He frowned. “No, a friend. A good friend who helps me out when I’ve been an idiot and then randomly drags half a tree into a hotel room for decorating. Last I checked, no cold-blooded killers were making sure they have a Christmas tree to share with their partner.”</p><p>“We always decorate trees on Christmas Eve,” Natasha murmured. “It’s our thing.”</p><p>“Yea, it is our thing,” he smiled. “C’mon, I won't have moping the night before Christmas. Just because we’re in Australia doesn’t mean we can't still celebrate.”</p><p>Clint didn’t know where her self-doubt had come from. He didn’t let her dwell on it though, asking for a new layer of aloe vera on his back so he could comfortably wear a shirt and take her to the supermarket. They spent an hour looking for eggnog until it became clear that it just wasn’t a thing in Australia, and then settled on a fruit cake with brandy custard instead. Natasha insisted on a whole pavlova for breakfast in the morning and after snagging the last roast chicken and a pack of bread rolls, they made the slow trek back to their room, comfortable in a silence that settled over them like a cloud.</p><p>After a quick dinner and another painful shower, Clint sat on his bed watching Natasha braid her hair. They had shoved the pavlova in the mini fridge but now had to drink – and pay for – all of the soft drinks they had taken out. He didn’t care, if only because it meant he could also chill the wine he had grabbed on a whim since neither of them were making a move to drink it tonight.</p><p>Eventually, Natasha stood and went into the bathroom, turning the bedroom light off behind her. Clint settled into bed, laying on his stomach to avoid prematurely popping any of his blisters. It wasn’t entirely comfortable, though he had had far worse. Budapest came to mind immediately and he tried to shake it away.</p><p>As if she were thinking the same thing, Natasha climbed into his bed after she was finished in the bathroom. She lay on her stomach beside him, hands cushioned under her face. He grinned at her sleepily and saw the Milky Way reflected in her eyes.</p><p>“Is this okay?” she whispered.</p><p>“More than okay,” he replied. “Night, Nat.”</p><p>He waited long after she had closed her eyes to fall asleep himself.</p><p> </p><p>Natasha was as excited as any kid on Christmas morning, already awake and sitting back in her own bed so she could bounce slightly on the spot without disturbing him. Clint stretched his legs and felt the tight pull of the skin across his back, then rolled onto his side so that he could see her.</p><p>“Merry Christmas, Clint,” she said in a rush, fingers tapping on her knees. “I put your present under the tree.”</p><p>He spotted the kangaroo wrapping paper immediately. “Oh my god, we haven’t seen a single kangaroo.”</p><p>“We can go to Australia Zoo,” Natasha said. “We don’t go home until Thursday.”</p><p>“Yes!” Clint cheered, jumping out of bed with much more enthusiasm than he had when waking up. “You know the way to my heart.”</p><p>Natasha beamed at him, and Clint momentarily forgot that he was supposed to be ignoring all of this; the excited flutter in his chest, the way Natasha’s smile made his knees shake and his palms sweat like he was some teenage boy about to ask out a girl for the first time. It was almost funny, until reality slammed into him and it all came crashing down around his feet.</p><p>“Open it,” Natasha urged when he didn’t move.</p><p>“Open yours first.”</p><p>Natasha didn’t need to be told twice. She launched herself off the bed and yanked her present out, then delicately began unwrapping it, taking her time to make sure that none of the paper tore. Clint rolled his eyes but was glad that the extra time gave him a minute to breathe. He had never been so nervous to see someone open a present.</p><p>“This is so cute,” Natasha murmured, pulling the book Koala Lou out from amongst the wrapping paper. “Now I’ll always remember this trip.”</p><p>“I’m <em>never </em>forgetting this mission,” Clint shuddered, scratching at his back out of habit. Now that the majority of the burn had settled his skin was starting to peel, causing irritation and driving Clint crazy. “There’s something else in there, too.”</p><p>Natasha tipped the paper upside down and a small pouch fell into her waiting hand. She opened it and pulled out the pair of opal earrings Clint had found at the markets, holding them delicately in her hand. He waited nervously to see her reaction, unsure if this was crossing some kind of line he didn’t know existed, even though she had literally <em>bought him a diamond</em> last year.</p><p>“I’ve never been given jewellery before,” Natasha said eventually. “I really… thank you.”</p><p>“No problem,” Clint said easily. He knew she didn’t buy herself jewellery, just wore the studs SHIELD had given her when they finally believed she wouldn’t use it to hurt herself; as though the tiny, silver earring could inflict more damage than her own nails.</p><p>She was already taking the old ones out. “Open yours.”</p><p>Clint didn’t want to rip the kangaroos up, but destroying wrapping paper was one of life’s greatest joys. He had been expecting the painting, even though he had no real reason to expect it. There was nothing saying that she <em>had </em>to give him one, and yet this was the third year in a row that the creamy paper she used fell out in a neat, folded square.</p><p>It was the ocean looking out towards the shore, the sand shimmering in the sun, the trees along the boardwalk tall and green. There was a figure on the beach, sitting on a picnic rug; a body wearing his swim suit and his hair and his face. Natasha was nowhere to be seen, and it took him a second to realise that this was her perspective from the water, that she had, somehow, found this moment worthy of immortalising with paint and paper.</p><p>“Is my head really that big?” he joked, then gave her a playful shove when she swatted at him. “This is beautiful.”</p><p>Natasha raised an eyebrow. “Beautiful?”</p><p>“I can say beautiful,” he argued. He grabbed the second thing that had fallen out with the painting and smiled. “Kangaroos are probably the only good thing to come out of Australia.”</p><p>“You’re wrong,” Natasha said. She took the kangaroo bauble from him and turned it over, pointing to the sack slung over its back. “Vegemite.”</p><p>“Disgusting,” Clint moaned. “But thank you. I can add this guy to the next tree we have at the farm.”</p><p>Natasha stared at him for a long, uncomfortable moment. Then, she opened the fridge and pulled out the pavlova. “Let’s have breakfast.”</p><p>Clint felt like his heart might stop beating, but he couldn’t take the words back now. He hadn’t even thought about it, had just assumed that maybe the next time he was at the farm Natasha would be there too, but they had never spoken about it. He didn’t know if this being their third Christmas together meant anything at all. If it weren’t for the mission, would they still be spending it with each other?</p><p>They ate the pavlova mostly in silence, then packed a bag with the leftover chicken and rolls and drove back to the secluded beach they had found a couple of days ago. It was quiet for Christmas day, though there was a family playing cricket on the sand, and after a little convincing they reluctantly joined the game; Natasha, unsurprisingly, hit every ball bowled her way until it was just unfair to let her keep batting, so she let herself be dragged off to build sandcastles with the children.</p><p>Clint missed a few balls because he was too busy watching her; watching how gently she stacked the sand, watching how she let the children hold her hand when they wanted to wade in the water. They didn’t know this family, had only been invited to join in on their Christmas because they hadn’t been doing anything themselves, and now Natasha was trying to drape seaweed to make curtains and they were teasing him for his accent and it was <em>nice</em>.</p><p>They spent the whole day there, only retreating back to their bag when the sun began to sink and the family left to go home. Clint opened the wine and they picked at the chicken until their bellies were full, then they lay on the rug and let the warm air blanket them. Clint’s head swam from the wine and he closed his eyes, listening to the sound of the waves and Natasha’s soft breaths beside him.</p><p>When he woke up, the sky was a sea of endless stars above him. He rolled over and found the rug beside him empty, a slight indentation in the sand the only indication that Natasha had been there. He sat up abruptly, looking around until he found her, wandering down towards the ocean. The tide was coming in, the waves much closer than they had been when they had sat down for dinner. He thought for a moment she might be sleepwalking again until she turned and looked at him over her shoulder, meeting his gaze for half a second before she looked away.</p><p>Natasha walked into the water, stopping when she was waist deep and could skim her fingers over the surface. She shimmered in the moonlight, almost like she wasn't there; almost like he had been lucky enough to dream her. She was like an eclipse he couldn't look away from and she drew him to her like the tide, marching his feet across the sand before he even realised he was doing it. He waded into the sea beside her and stared out at the infinite sky.</p><p>“I can't have children,” Natasha said to him.</p><p>“I know,” he replied. “I can't either.”</p><p>It wasn't the same, he knew that. But their job didn't allow for dependents and he wasn't sure if he would ever be lucky enough to retire. In the future, if he squinted, he could maybe picture it: the farm and tiny feet on wooden floorboards, waking up at the crack of dawn and toothless smiles. It didn't matter to him, really. He could count on one hand his wants.</p><p>“I had a dream about my mother,” Natasha said. She carded her fingers through the water, creating ripples around their waists. “I was chasing her. I knew it was her but... when she turned around she had no features. There was nothing. They took that from me.”</p><p>“I’m sorry,” he said. It didn’t mean much, they both knew that. It was all he could offer her.</p><p>“I had a dream about her in Budapest, too.”</p><p>Clint felt the familiar ache deep in his chest, the tingle of panic that settled over his skin every time he thought about that place. How many nightmares had he had since then? How many times had he watched Natasha’s breath stutter, felt the tremors of her body under the rubble, woken up with her name on his lips and the fear that she wouldn’t be safe in her own bed? </p><p>Natasha turned her head to look at him, strands of hair curling around her temples. “I died, Clint.”</p><p>He took a deep breath. “I know.”</p><p>“Thank you for not letting go of me,” she said softly. “When I woke up, you were holding my hand. You told me that I’d had a really long nap. I remember that.”</p><p>Clint hadn’t thought she had been lucid enough to even know it was happening at the time, but he had sat with her through it all; the defibrillator, the surgery to stop the internal bleeding, the days that she slept and the one when she finally, <em>finally</em> woke up. He had gone to the bathroom to shower only on the condition that Coulson held her hand until he came back. He hadn’t been willing to let her think she was alone.</p><p>“I was scared,” he said. “You scared me.”</p><p>“I was scared too,” Natasha said. She reached out, finding his fingers under the water and lacing them with hers. “It wasn’t so bad, knowing you were with me. I felt safe.”</p><p>Clint swallowed and squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get you out myself.”</p><p>“I didn’t expect you to save me again. You’ve already done that once.”</p><p>“Wouldn’t call that <em>saving</em> so much as <em>forcing</em>, but okay,” Clint muttered.</p><p>Natasha shook her head. “You need to stop thinking of it like that, because I don’t. I’m happy to be here.”</p><p>“I’m happy to be here, too,” Clint admitted. “Should we go back to the hotel?”</p><p>Natasha tilted her head up to the sky. Clint did too, staring up at the stars, letting the warmth of the water and the feeling of Natasha’s hand in his ground him. They weren’t there anymore; they weren’t clinging to each other desperately, weren’t choking on cement and words that sat too heavy in their stomachs. They had crawled out of Budapest and were here, now, in another country with a warm sun and no bloodshed. The words didn’t feel so out of reach now. Clint didn’t want the night to end.</p><p>So when Natasha said, “can we stay a little longer?” he just smiled and draped his arm over her shoulders and thought that the stars would never shine as bright as her. Maybe Australia wasn’t so bad after all.</p>
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<a name="section0004"><h2>4. 2008</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>happy wednesday i can't believe it's been a week already but here we are with chapter 4 and the LAST chapter that will be posted in july so we're basically saying goodbye to christmas in july (yes i hate myself for not having it all written to post only in july yes i will be thinking about that for as long as i live)  anyway, i hope ya'll are taking care of yourselves and i hope this brings a lil joy to your day 🥺 this chapter features mistletoe i mean?? it's cute okay trust me</p>
<p>warnings: accidental (non graphic) amputation i literally cannot make this up. it happens</p>
<p>enjoy my lovelies!! see you next week xx</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
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    <strong>2008</strong>
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<p>Clint barely had time to open the door before Natasha barged in, arms folded over her chest to hold up the dress that was gaping at her back. She muttered something in Russian and he stuck his head out of the door curiously, watching several agents duck into their own rooms or around corners. He frowned, shut the door and turned to face his partner, taking in her dishevelled appearance and fiery eyes.</p>
<p>“You okay or –”</p>
<p>“I’m going to kill someone,” Natasha snarled. “Zip me up so I can go and break their necks.”</p>
<p>“Easy, Romanoff,” Clint laughed. “You imagine how mad Fury would be if he had to deal with a clean up on Christmas Eve?”</p>
<p>“He would let me,” Natasha argued. “I’m his favourite.”</p>
<p>Clint didn’t dignify that with a response. It was almost ironic, how much Fury seemed to care for Natasha now, as though he hadn’t been one of the people that had doubted this whole thing working out at the beginning; as though he hadn’t rolled his eyes and told them it was pointless to try, that she would never progress past silence and blank stares and the weight of her past.</p>
<p>Clint had never seen Fury step foot in medical until the day they had dragged Natasha in after Budapest. He hadn’t realised that other people actually cared too, so convinced he was that half the organisation was still out for Natasha’s head. But Maria had dropped by, and Coulson had held her hand for him, and even Fury had sat at her bedside and worried like a father who didn’t quite know how to worry. Now, Natasha could do almost whatever she wanted and Fury would just turn a blind eye, or once, memorably, <em>laugh</em>.</p>
<p>“You should probably tell me what you’re committing treason for,” Clint commented, making his way past her and to the bathroom. He needed to shave or Coulson would never forgive him. “I need more details.”</p>
<p>“They were looking at me,” Natasha said simply.</p>
<p>Clint glanced at her reflection in the mirror. “<em>Elaborate</em>, Nat.”</p>
<p>“I can't do the zip up so I thought I’d get you to do it,” Natasha snapped, throwing her arms up in the air and causing the front of the dress to slip down her chest. “And they all followed me here. I’m going to <em>kill them</em>.”</p>
<p>“So the other agents were looking at you?” Clint confirmed. At her nod he shrugged, rubbing shaving cream across his cheeks. “Death seems warranted to me.”</p>
<p>“Thank you,” Natasha said. She pulled her dress back over her shoulders and leant against the doorframe, watching the razor pass over his skin. “Why do they treat me like that?”</p>
<p>“Cause they’re assholes,” he muttered. “Ask Maria. She thinks we’re all assholes.”</p>
<p>“What else do I have to do to prove to them that…” she trailed off, looking more upset than annoyed now.</p>
<p>It wasn’t supposed to be like this anymore. Natasha was the best agent SHIELD had seen in years and what she lacked in social capability she more than made up for in loyalty and skill. She hadn’t made friends beyond himself and Maria for the simple fact that most people looked at her like she was a piece of meat, and Clint still wasn’t convinced that no one would try and come after her if given the chance.</p>
<p>She could take care of herself, he knew that. It took a toll, though, to feel like everyone hated you for simply not dying. And he cared about her. He really, <em>deeply</em>, cared about her; more than friends, more than Budapest and Australia and all of the countries since then. More than the Dogs Cops finale he was missing <em>again</em> to go to Coulson’s party with her, because all she had to do was look at him and he would give her the world.</p>
<p>“Nothing, Nat,” he said softly. His fingers itched towards her, wanting to smooth the frown that sat between her eyebrows. “You don’t need to prove anything to them.”</p>
<p>“Right,” Natasha muttered, then changed the subject. “If you don’t hurry up we’ll be late.”</p>
<p>“We have heaps of time,” Clint reassured her. “It’s like, noon.”</p>
<p>“It’s 7pm, Clint.”</p>
<p>He winced. “Okay. I’m almost ready.”</p>
<p>He expected Natasha to go back out and wait for him in the bedroom, but she stayed where she was, eyes following his hand as he ran the razor over his skin. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking, though the rage that had been simmering beneath the surface seemed to have dissipated now and left some kind of resignation in its wake. He cleaned off the razor and then splashed his face with water, running his fingers briefly through his messy hair to try and give it some sense of style. If Coulson didn’t appreciate his effort than Clint was going to have a fit.</p>
<p>Natasha continued to watch him as he flung his shirt off and swapped it for the nicer one she had helped him buy last week. Boundaries had never really existed between them, at least not in the conventional way. She could watch him change and he could march her to the bathroom when she was in the middle of a sleepwalking episode but neither of them could cross the one line that was holding them back; neither of them could say the words they both so desperately wanted to hear.</p>
<p>He didn’t know for sure if the last year had really changed that much between them. Natasha, for the most part, acted just like she did every day. Coulson was only concerned about the fact that she still used wooden forks for dinner and occasionally went days without talking, and Clint would maybe be worried about that too if it wasn’t just <em>normal</em>. Besides, he had other things to worry about, like the subtle way Natasha looked at him now; the way she softened just slightly and grinned like he had plucked the stars straight from the heavens for her.</p>
<p>Clint pulled his new shirt on, doing up the buttons slowly in a half-hearted attempt at distracting himself. “How do I look?”</p>
<p>“Handsome,” Natasha said easily. “You need your tie.”</p>
<p>“On the bed,” Clint pointed, then took a step towards her as if to leave. She didn’t let him, blocking the door with her body and giving him another calculated look. “What now?”</p>
<p>“My zip,” Natasha whispered. She entered the bathroom properly, standing toe to toe with him in the tiny space. He could smell her perfume, something expensive that Fury had apparently bought her for her twenty-seventh or twenty-sixth birthday, they hadn’t quite worked it out yet. She held her dress up with one hand, but he only had to look down and…</p>
<p>“What?” Clint kept his eyes on hers, tried to slow the pounding of his heart. The bathroom was too small for this, and maybe Natasha realised that as well. She took another half step forward until they were almost touching, her gaze settled firmly on his lips.</p>
<p>“My zip,” she repeated. He felt her breath ghost on his neck and swallowed, jolting when her arm brushed his as she turned her exposed back to him. “I can’t reach it.”</p>
<p>This was one of those moments when psych would want him to make her ask. It was the small things that undid the most progress, he knew that, but he couldn’t find the right words. She didn’t <em>need </em>to ask him to do this. She didn’t need to ask him to do anything.</p>
<p>“Course,” he said softly. He reached out with shaking fingers that he couldn’t control and gathered her hair carefully, brushing it over her right shoulder and letting his palm graze over her skin. He heard the sharp intake of her breath, saw goose bumps prickle across the back of her neck. His head swam with the fragrance of her perfume.</p>
<p>Clint reached for her zipper, pulling the two halves of the dress together slightly with his free hand. A black-tie event wasn’t his idea of fun, and combining it with a Christmas party just seemed like some form of Hell that Coulson was using to personally punish him, but it couldn’t be so bad if Natasha looked like this. The dress was floor length and form fitting, a stark contrast against her fiery red hair, and the plunging neckline drew attention to the creamy skin of her chest and the tiny pink scar that was her one memento from Budapest.</p>
<p>He knew that she was beautiful, would have to be blind not to notice her eyes and lips and body, but he hadn’t fallen in love with her for that. And he could admit it now, could tell himself that it <em>was </em>love, that the pain and the panic immediately following the building collapse hadn’t just been concern for a friend. He loved her like this, dressed to the nines wearing perfume that should be illegal for what it was doing to his head, but he also loved her away from the glamour; he loved her idiosyncrasies, too, the way excitement burst out of her body and how she always searched for him when she was sleepwalking.</p>
<p>Clint pulled the zipper up slowly, careful not to snag any of her skin. When he reached the top of the dress he paused, tucking the zip against the dress and then pulling the small clasp together. He let his fingers linger, bringing her hair from over her shoulder so that it could fall in soft waves down her back. She turned to face him again and he was acutely aware of how close they were, how much smaller the bathroom suddenly seemed.</p>
<p>“Thank you,” she murmured.</p>
<p>“Anytime,” Clint replied. He didn’t want to move, but they would be late if they just stood there staring at each other all night. “You wouldn’t know how to tie a bowtie by any chance?”</p>
<p>“Of course I do,” Natasha replied. She took a step back, then another until she was out of the bathroom and Clint felt like he could breathe again. He waited a beat before following her, scooping his shoes off the ground as he came to a stop in front of the bed.</p>
<p>Even in heels, Natasha had to stretch just slightly to get the bowtie around his neck. Face to face, there was nowhere he could hide, so he tried to keep his expression level even as his heart summersaulted in his chest. He watched her eyes, watched the way she bit her bottom lip just slightly as she finished the knot. She glanced up at him from beneath her lashes and smiled softly, patting his chest once.</p>
<p>“Done,” she told him, moving to pick up her purse. “Coulson won’t be happy that we’re late.”</p>
<p>“I’m <em>always </em>late,” Clint said, feeling them slot back into the easy conversation they were used to. He slipped his shoes on, grabbed his suit jacket and gestured for her to lead the way. “He’s gonna be disappointed in <em>you</em>, Romanoff.”</p>
<p>Natasha hesitated at the door. Clint hadn’t seen her waver for a long time, and it was enough to make him stop, too. He gave her thirty seconds, but her gaze was still locked on the doorknob and he could tell that she wasn’t going to open it. Psych would say something about <em>enabling her behaviours</em> but he was more concerned about actually leaving the building now that he was in the bloody suit. He reached around her and opened the door, finally jolting some movement into her.</p>
<p>“Sorry,” she muttered as he locked up behind them. The halls were empty of the agents who had been lingering after her earlier, and Clint saw the tension leave her shoulders. “It’s difficult.”</p>
<p>“I know,” Clint said. “Don’t stress it, Nat. We got a party to go to.”</p>
<p>They caught a cab to Coulson’s apartment, entering well after the party had begun but thankfully avoiding any scrutiny. Most of the other people there were drunk enough to not even notice them slip in, but Maria was halfway through pestering Coulson into letting her spike the already alcoholic eggnog when she spotted them entering the kitchen.</p>
<p>“Look who decided to <em>finally </em>show up,” she teased. “Let me guess. Barton was busy doing his hair.”</p>
<p>Natasha’s lips twitched. “He thought it was noon.”</p>
<p>“Unbelievable,” Maria muttered. “I could’ve used you five minutes ago, when Coulson wouldn’t let me add whiskey to the eggnog.”</p>
<p>“Not tonight,” Coulson said firmly. “You look nice, Natasha.”</p>
<p>“What am I,” Clint snorted, indicating his suit. “Chopped liver?”</p>
<p>“You look good,” Maria conceded. “I look better, though.”</p>
<p>He had to admit that she <em>did </em>look better than him in her tux. He hadn’t expected Maria to wear a dress quite like Natasha’s, because she wasn’t one to dress up and Natasha always liked to outdo herself anyway, but the pants and crisp white shirt were tasteful and refined. She was the only woman who hadn’t come in a dress.</p>
<p>“It’s not a competition,” Coulson said tiredly. “If it was I would win.”</p>
<p>“Thank you,” Natasha said, finally finding a moment to respond to Coulson’s previous compliment.</p>
<p>“Yea, you look hot, Romanoff,” Maria said. “Come get some eggnog with me.”</p>
<p>Natasha raised an eyebrow at Maria’s choice of words but let herself be dragged over to the folding table. Clint looked around the room, trying to see if there was anyone else there he would want to actually talk to. Agent Evans was over in the living room but it didn’t look like he had spotted Natasha yet, and even though he hadn’t really bothered them for the last two years Clint had noticed his lingering stares, the way he pushed himself into Natasha’s space whenever they were training at the same time. It irked him, and not just because he had feelings for her himself.</p>
<p>Coulson was going in the opposite direction so Clint followed him, snagging a beer from the kitchen. It was loud, though not nearly as loud as it had been last time, and despite the obvious alcohol intake everyone seemed to be behaving themselves. The close proximity still made his skin itch, but he was comfortable enough to talk to Shaw and Collins without feeling the need to check over his shoulder every other second.</p>
<p>It was the type of conversation he could contribute to without needing to really make an effort. Between beer and whiskey and tiny little canapes that Clint couldn’t stop eating, they talked about their latest missions and new tech and what they were going to do now that there was no game on Christmas Day. And every time he looked around to find Natasha he caught her already watching him, the smallest smile playing at her lips, but it probably didn’t mean anything. It probably didn’t mean anything at all.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maria narrowed her eyes. “Bullshit.”</p>
<p>“I don’t lie,” Clint replied. His words were surprisingly clear even though his head felt like it was miles above his body. “I can dance hula.”</p>
<p>“I don’t believe it,” Maria protested. “Those hips are simply not made for hula.”</p>
<p>“Help me out here, Nat,” Clint moaned, nudging her with his elbow. She looked up from where she had been picking apart a mini bagel and frowned, suddenly remembering she was in the middle of the conversation with them. “I <em>can </em>hula. Tell her.”</p>
<p>“He can,” Natasha agreed, flicking bits of bagel off her fingers. She reached for her eggnog and swished it around in her cup before taking a sip. “We took lessons.”</p>
<p>Maria blinked at her. “The two of you had time between, what, stealing classified information and dismantling a terrorist cell to <em>also take hula lesson in Hawaii</em>?”</p>
<p>“Couples retreat,” Clint said without thinking. Maria made a face and he quickly tried to backtrack. “Technically it was <em>at </em>a couples retreat, but it was the only place that would take a last-minute booking. Plus, they had all you can eat buffet. Only hotel in the area with plastic forks.”</p>
<p>Natasha smiled softly. “I don’t like poke.”</p>
<p>“But you like vegemite,” Clint muttered. “Your tastebuds are weird.”</p>
<p>Maria slammed her drink onto the side table and pointed a finger at him. “Only way to prove it is to <em>prove it</em>.”</p>
<p>“I’m not doing the fucking hula, Hill,” Clint said. “I’m not nearly drunk enough.”</p>
<p>“It’s not the right music, anyway,” Natasha pointed out, and Clint had never been so thankful to have her on his side. “Christmas music is for slow dancing.”</p>
<p>“Is it though?” Maria asked, leaning back in her chair. “I don’t know, Jingle Bells isn’t really a slow dance kind of song.”</p>
<p>Clint laughed, trying to picture Natasha doing any kind of dance to Jingle Bells. She grinned and knocked her knee against his, as if she knew what he was thinking and couldn’t help but agree; that the thought of either of them slow dancing to Christmas music was almost as unbelievable as Clint actually knowing the hula. Maria just rolled her eyes and necked the rest of her beer, already reaching for the one Natasha had abandoned in favour of eggnog.</p>
<p>He was the kind of buzzed that he enjoyed; two steps away from being actually drunk, but long past sober and all of the expectations that came with it. Natasha had a barely susceptible flush to her cheeks that he only noticed in certain lighting, and Maria was well on her way to one hell of a hangover in the morning, and they were all the kind of happy that warmed them from the inside until all they could do was smile and laugh.</p>
<p>Clint spun the cheese knife between his fingers, then jabbed it into a piece of cheddar and held it out to Natasha. “You want some?”</p>
<p>Natasha reached for the cheese at the same moment that Agent Evans came up behind her, dropping his arm over her shoulders and acting as if he had tripped. His hand dipped into the hollow between her breasts and Clint’s head filled with static, vision burning red as he watched shock and then pain flash across Natasha’s features before she froze her face in an impenetrable mask.</p>
<p>“Sorry, Romanoff,” Evans was saying. “I can be such a klutz when I’ve had a few too many – ”</p>
<p>In a split second, Natasha yanked Evans’ hand from her skin, slammed it down onto the table and snatched the knife from Clint, and before he could even blink she had driven the mostly blunt object into the first knuckle of his pointer finger, severing it completely. There was a moment when no one did anything, and then everything seemed to explode at once.</p>
<p>Evans jerked away from her, clutching his hand to his chest. “You bitch! You’re a fucking psychopath! I should’ve put that bullet in your head myself.”</p>
<p>“Get out, Evans,” Hill spat, standing too and glaring him down. “I’ll cut off more than your finger.”</p>
<p>“Hey, hey,” Clint heard Coulson say, but he tuned it all out, focused only on Natasha and the way her whole body had locked together, and he knew immediately what it meant. He grabbed her wrist, held it tight enough that it forced her to take a breath, then dragged her after him to the spare bedroom, ignoring the stares from the other guests who had only caught the tail end of the encounter.</p>
<p>He shut the door behind them and sat her on the bed, then took a step away to try and clear his head. He blew out a breath and counted down from ten. Natasha watched him carefully, and he kind of wanted her to say something first, kind of wanted her to turn around and tell him that it had all been a joke, that she had been planning it all along just to get him to laugh.</p>
<p>“You okay?” he settled on eventually.</p>
<p>Natasha looked tiny, sitting on the bed in her gown. “I’m not sure.”</p>
<p>“Okay,” Clint breathed. “You angry, maybe?”</p>
<p>Natasha nodded quickly, hands clenched into fits on her thighs. Clint sat beside her and took one of them in his, flexing her fingers out and rubbing across her knuckles. It wasn’t much, but he didn’t know what else he could offer her. A hug didn’t seem like the best idea following what had just happened.</p>
<p>“You’re allowed to be angry at people,” Clint said gently. “I just don’t think you should cut their fingers off.”</p>
<p>“I couldn’t stop it,” Natasha whispered. She gripped onto his thumb and squeezed, hard enough to hurt but not so much that he wanted to pull away. “What if something’s wrong with me?”</p>
<p>“Nothing’s wrong,” Clint assured her. “Tasha, nothing is wrong with you. It was a spur of the moment thing, okay? I probably would have slammed his head into the table myself.”</p>
<p>Natasha gave him a look. “You’ve never called me that.”</p>
<p>“What, Tasha?” Clint tried to think back over the last few years, sure that he had let that nickname slip in somewhere. “I have, I think.”</p>
<p>“You haven’t,” Natasha stressed. “I would remember.”</p>
<p>“Okay,” Clint conceded. “I didn’t. Is it okay?”</p>
<p>“It’s okay,” she said softly. “What if I ruined Coulson’s party?”</p>
<p>“Nothing’s ruined,” Clint told her. “Listen, the music is still playing. If the night was ruined Coulson would have sent everyone home.”</p>
<p>“He’s not come to see us. He probably hates me.”</p>
<p>Clint sighed, rubbing at her palm again. Natasha could spiral like no one else, falling into old habits and bad thoughts with barely any notice. It didn’t happen much anymore, so he had to stop and really think about what he could do without making things worse. He didn’t want to upset her more, because he <em>did </em>believe Evans had deserved for something to happen, though maybe not something as extreme as losing half his finger. He had to be her partner; he had to support her and back her up, make sure she didn’t end up having another stint in psych because some idiot couldn’t keep his hands to himself.</p>
<p>“I’m tired,” Natasha mumbled. “We were having a fun night.”</p>
<p>“Dance with me,” Clint blurted, tugging on her hand. “Let’s just dance.”</p>
<p>“What?” Natasha asked, shocked enough by his outburst to forget her self-doubt.</p>
<p>“Slow dance to Christmas music with me,” Clint said. “It’s Silent Night, can you hear?”</p>
<p>Natasha looked unsure, but she stood up and stepped towards him, let him put his hand on her waist and pull her a little closer. He clutched her other hand tightly in his own, brought his forehead down until he could press it against hers slightly, trying to tell her with his actions that this didn’t change anything. He wasn’t afraid of her, would <em>never </em>walk away from her for something like this. She gripped his shirt and he felt the breath that left her body like a punch to a gut.</p>
<p>They swayed to Silent Night, slightly muffled as it was through the door. Clint didn’t think he could look at her without his heart bursting out of his chest, so he kept his eyes focused on the opposite wall, holding it together up until the moment she pressed her cheek against his chest and wrapped her arm around his body. Something clicked into place and he threw caution to the wind, letting his own cheek rest on top of her head.</p>
<p>The world seemed to stop spinning in that moment. All Clint could hear was the song and Natasha’s breaths, and all he could see was her hair and her body lighting up the room. He had never been so gentle with anything in his life, knowing, perhaps, that Natasha needed soft and sweet in this moment; just like how she sometimes needed his anger, his frustration, his <em>energy </em>to use for herself, to make herself feel something when she couldn’t work out what she needed.</p>
<p>At the end of it all, they needed each other the most. Clint couldn’t imagine now a life without her in it, and if he thought about his future she was just there, as if it had always been destined that way. Last Christmas, he had imagined tiny feet padding down the hall at the farm, and now when he thought about it he saw her feet, too; her feet following a step behind, ready to catch and soothe. It scared him more than anything else, because <em>this</em>, what they had now, wasn’t worth ruining over a dream that would never come true.</p>
<p>Silent Night faded into Santa Baby but Natasha didn’t pull away. “They’re going to make me talk about this.”</p>
<p>“Yea,” Clint agreed. “Maybe it won’t be a bad thing.”</p>
<p>“You’re the only one who understands my brain,” Natasha said. “It’s been four years, Clint. I thought it would have stopped by now.”</p>
<p>“I don’t think there’s a time limit on trauma, Nat,” Clint replied. “Hey, I don’t think we’ve ever actually said the word before, either. <em>Trauma</em>.”</p>
<p>“Trauma,” Natasha repeated. Her arm squeezed around his waist and he swore he could feel her smiling. “What would Coulson say?”</p>
<p>“Go to therapy,” Clint mocked. “Your partner <em>died</em>, Clint. You saw the whole thing!”</p>
<p>Natasha actually laughed. “You cut someone’s finger off with a cheese knife. Tell us how you feel about cutlery again.”</p>
<p>“I think you’re gonna be just fine,” he said softly. “If you want we can haul ass and go decorate our tree?”</p>
<p>Natasha finally pulled away, and Clint immediately missed the feeling of her in his arms. She flopped onto the bed and patted the space beside her, so he sat carefully and stared at his shoes, not quite ready to leave the room yet. He wasn’t convinced that Coulson wouldn’t send them straight to psych, holidays be damned. He also wasn’t convinced that Coulson wouldn’t yell, and he didn’t know which was worse; the shrink or his handler’s disappointment.</p>
<p>“What’s that?” Natasha asked, pointing up at the ceiling.</p>
<p>Clint looked above them and felt heat rise to his cheeks. “Oh. Um. It’s, uh, a plant? Maybe?”</p>
<p>Natasha squinted at it, then sat up again so she could get a better look. “It’s mistletoe.”</p>
<p>“Oh, is it?” Clint could play dumb if he needed to, and he considered this to be one of those times when he <em>absolutely</em> needed to. Being caught under the mistletoe with Natasha after whatever had just happened out there was the last thing he wanted. “I didn’t realise.”</p>
<p>“Mistletoe is a symbol of life,” Natasha murmured. “It’s bad luck to refuse a kiss under mistletoe.”</p>
<p>“You read that somewhere?” Clint asked. His heart pounded in his chest, his eyes fused to hers as if looking away would break whatever spell they had fallen under. He was acutely aware of how close they were; knees touching, thighs pressed solidly against one another, faces only a foot apart. It would be <em>so easy</em> to lean in…</p>
<p>“I did,” Natasha whispered. “In a Christmas book. I don’t remember what it’s called.”</p>
<p>“Doesn’t matter,” Clint whispered back. “You can show me some other time.”</p>
<p>“I think you would win the best-dressed competition. Just don’t tell Hill.”</p>
<p>“Nah,” Clint said softly, and he wasn’t really sure why they were whispering, just that their words still rang loud and clear in the air between them. “You take the cake. You look so pretty, Tasha.”</p>
<p>Natasha’s pupils dilated as she moved even closer, and Clint could smell her perfume again, all of the floral and fruit fragrances that made him feel drunker than the beer had. She moved her hand up, cupping his cheek gently, and Clint couldn’t help but lean into her touch just a little. He watched her lean in, closing her eyes when she was inches away, and he closed his, too; waited with bated breath and a heart that felt like it was lodged in his throat.</p>
<p>He felt her lips brush his cheek, the chaste kiss sending a shock through his body that made his breath shake. She lingered there, warm against his side, her own breath soft and sure in his ear, and when she pulled back she went slowly, keeping her hand on his cheek until he opened his eyes and saw the want swimming on her face that he knew mirrored his own.</p>
<p>“We can't have bad luck,” Natasha murmured.</p>
<p>“No,” Clint agreed. “We don’t need any more bad luck.”</p>
<p>Natasha watched him for a second longer, then stood and smoothed out her dress as though she couldn’t quite keep her hands still. “Should we decorate the tree, then?”</p>
<p>“Yea,” he said gruffly, following her a little too quickly. “Probably should check in with Coulson too, right?”</p>
<p>“I guess,” Natasha shrugged. She hesitated at the door, and he knew what she was thinking because he was thinking it too. The moment they opened it, everything that had just happened would be shoved aside and never spoken of again. Clint wasn’t sure he was ready for that.</p>
<p>She didn’t give him a chance to say anything else, letting herself out of the room and marching her way right up to Coulson. Clint caught sight of Maria and gathered from her poorly acted charades that Evans had been sent to Medical, so he gave her a thumbs up and went to back up his partner, trying to ignore the burn on his cheek from where her lips had briefly met his skin.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Clint didn’t know if it was necessarily a good idea for Natasha to stay the night, but he wasn’t about to say no to her, either. Maria had insisted on them staying for a little longer, so they had had piled onto the sofa with too much eggnog between them and stumbled home only when Coulson kicked them out. He helped unzip Natasha’s dress and then forced himself to take a shower, even though it was well past midnight now and he wanted to fall in a heap.</p>
<p>When he came out Natasha was already under the covers, wearing one of his hoodies with her eyes closed. Clint switched the light off, shuffled his way over and squeezed onto the small bed beside her. The lights on the tiny plastic tree he had picked up from Walmart flashed red and green in the dark.</p>
<p>“Good party,” Clint mumbled. “Can cross that off the bucket list.”</p>
<p>“Hmm?” Natasha rolled over, and he felt her arm fall heavily across his stomach. He could smell the alcohol on both of their breaths. Tomorrow was <em>not </em>going to be a fun time.</p>
<p>“Accidental amputation. Never thought I’d actually see it.”</p>
<p>Natasha snorted. “I’m glad someone enjoyed it.”</p>
<p>“Evans is a dick,” Clint said. “He always looks at you like that. Like it’s just your body. Like you’re not the smartest person in the room, or, I don’t know. Like you're not more than that.”</p>
<p>“We’re drunk, Barton,” Natasha said. “You don’t have to say that.”</p>
<p>“I’m not saying it cause I’m drunk,” he argued, even though he would definitely <em>never </em>ramble like this when he was sober. “I’m saying it cause it’s true, okay? You’re not just beautiful on the outside.”</p>
<p>“You make it so hard,” he heard Natasha whisper, but if she finished her sentence he missed the rest of it. She pulled herself closer to him and he felt her fingers rubbing the skin across his hip. “You’re too good, Clint.”</p>
<p>“Says you,” he murmured. “Ya know, Christmas didn’t mean anything before you.”</p>
<p>“I know,” Natasha said. “I know that.”</p>
<p>“Good,” Clint whispered, closing his eyes. “Long as you know how much it means to me.”</p>
<p>“Thank you,” Natasha breathed, her lips right by his cheek again. Her knee pushed between his legs until she was half on top of him, the way she slept when she wasn’t feeling quite like herself. “It means the same to me.”</p>
<p>Clint kept his eyes closed but waited for the tell-tale signs that she had fallen asleep; her arm loosening around his waist, her breaths deepening and the quiet mumbling that proceeded her sleep talking. He didn’t even know how many conversations he had listened to over the years, how many times she had unconsciously told him about the flowers she had seen or the colour of the sky when the sun was setting. He loved those midnight confessions, and not for the first time he wished he was brave enough to tell her his <em>own</em> confession.</p>
<p>He curled into her, whispering “Merry Christmas, Tasha,” into her hair. He thought it might mean the same thing, anyway.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Christmas morning brought with it a fresh layer of snow and a headache that made Clint entertain, briefly, never drinking again. Natasha was a dead-weight beside him, cocooned in his blanket with her face peeking out. She’d given him a history lesson on mistletoe at 3am that he couldn’t find it in him to be mad about, but for the past few hours she had been relatively quiet. Clint lay there for a while ignoring his dry mouth until the pounding in his temples finally made him swing his legs over the bed in search of an Advil.</p>
<p>“Unicorns are real,” he heard Natasha say. She hadn’t moved but the frown on her face made him smile softly. “Fury has one. Clint… It’s true, I know.”</p>
<p>“Okay,” he replied, even though he was never sure if she could actually hear him. “I believe you.”</p>
<p>“Gonna tell him,” she mumbled. “Hey, Clint.”</p>
<p>He paused on his mission to find his water bottle. “Yea?”</p>
<p>There was a moment of silence, and then Natasha cracked an eye open, reaching up and rubbing at her face. “Did you say something?”</p>
<p>“You were sleep talking,” he told her. “Wanted to tell me something.”</p>
<p>“I don’t remember,” she said. She winced and rolled onto her back, then delicately pushed herself up against the wall. “Did I really cut someone’s finger off last night?”</p>
<p>“Yea, that happened,” Clint said. He found his water and skulled half the bottle, feeling some sense of life return to his body. “I don’t know, still seems warranted.”</p>
<p>“It was probably the wrong reaction,” Natasha muttered. “I didn’t know what to say.”</p>
<p>“I think you reacted the same way I would have reacted,” Clint assured her. “Maria <em>definitely</em> would have killed him. Besides, you heard Coulson. That kind of behaviour isn’t tolerated at SHIELD.”</p>
<p>Coulson had, unsurprisingly, been on Natasha’s side following the events of the previous night, though he hadn’t necessarily agreed that her actions had been appropriate. SHIELD’s rules on harassment seemed to be stricter than their rules on bodily harm, however, and for that Clint was grateful. Natasha would start seeing her shrink again and Evans would be moved to a different base and everything would, <em>theoretically</em>, go back to normal.</p>
<p>Natasha huffed. “I don’t like people touching me like that.”</p>
<p>“I don’t blame you,” Clint said. “I wouldn’t like it either.”</p>
<p>She shuffled her way across the bed and got up, stumbling into the bathroom without saying anything else. Clint sat on the floor and watched the blinking lights of the tree, noticing that Natasha had once again snuck her present past him. He crawled over to prod at it, trying to work out what she would have bought him that would fit in a small box.</p>
<p>“No peeking,” Natasha said from behind him.</p>
<p>Clint didn’t jump, but he did turn to her and roll his eyes dramatically. “I wasn’t peeking.”</p>
<p>“You can open it.” Natasha sat beside him, close enough that their knees were brushing. She reached under the tree and passed it to him, and he could see that she was trying to hide her nervousness by taking control of the situation. “Merry Christmas.”</p>
<p>“Is it going to explode if I give it a shake?” he joked, then frowned at the look on Natasha’s face. “Jesus, Romanoff. Don’t tell me this is a bomb.”</p>
<p>“It’s not a bomb,” she said. “Just open it.”</p>
<p>Clint ripped into the paper and then yanked the lid off the box, lifting the arrowhead out with far more care than he had just used to reach his gift. He sat it in his palm, turned it over in his fingers to get a feel for the weight of it. There was a tiny raised bump on the top that he could feel under his thumb. There was also a piece of paper in the box, and when he unfolded it he saw his crude attempt at drawing the arrowhead alongside Natasha’s much neater version.</p>
<p>“This is the sketch of the exploding arrowhead,” Clint said slowly. “We were talking about this months ago.”</p>
<p>“After Beirut,” Natasha prompted. “You wanted something that would explode with the click of a button. I couldn’t wrap the bow, but it’s down at the armoury for you.”</p>
<p>He stared at her. “You had explosive arrowheads made?”</p>
<p>“Yes,” Natasha replied carefully. “You… You said you wanted them.”</p>
<p>“I’m,” Clint started, then shook his head in shock. “Wow, Nat. This is incredible.”</p>
<p>She let out a breath. “You like it?”</p>
<p>“I love it,” he told her. “I thought it was just some stupid idea. So the bow has – ”</p>
<p>“A button,” Natasha interrupted. “Once the arrow hits the target, you press it to explode. Tech only made ten. I think they thought I was plotting something.”</p>
<p>“God, this is amazing,” Clint gushed, unable to contain his excitement. “We have to find something to blow up.”</p>
<p>“We’re going to be in Kuala Lumpur next week. It might be useful there.”</p>
<p>Clint kind of wanted to hug her, but he settled on knocking his shoulder against hers. He had dreamt of exploding arrowheads for years now, though after the mess they had created in Beirut he had considered it a necessity. Even the inclusion of their original sketches made the gift that much more personal; he could remember lying on the rooftop with her on that hot and sticky night, drawing the lines by moonlight while they waited for their mark to leave.</p>
<p>“I have a painting, too,” Natasha said. He noticed for the first time the card that was leaning against the wall by the tree, so leant forward to grab it. “I didn’t have much time.”</p>
<p>Instead of a larger painting like she usually gave him, Natasha had used the back of a postcard to paint the interior of the Dohány Street Synagogue in Budapest; everything from the chandeliers to the pattern on the roof was included, as well as tiny versions of the two of them standing before the alter. Clint could remember their first day there, before everything went to absolute shit.</p>
<p>“You liked this place,” he said softly. “You said you’d been there before.”</p>
<p>“Not for a good reason,” Natasha replied. “I wanted to take you there so… so the memory wasn’t bad anymore.”</p>
<p>Clint swallowed the lump in his throat, smiling softly. “Did it work?”</p>
<p>“Yes,” she said easily. “It’s the only thing I remember from the mission. That, and the knowledge that you were by my side the whole time.”</p>
<p>Even though it had been over a year, talking about Budapest still left a bitter taste in his mouth. He knew what Natasha was trying to do, though; she was trying to remind him of the beauty, the quiet peacefulness they had settled into before their failed mission. The painting was immaculate, like always. He couldn’t stop running his finger over the bright red of her hair.</p>
<p>“This is really nice,” he murmured. “Thank you, Nat. Best Christmas ever.”</p>
<p>Natasha had already taken her own gift out from under the tree and was working on peeling the wrapping paper without ripping it. “I’m glad you like it.”</p>
<p>“One day you’ll tear into one of these,” Clint teased. “I can guarantee it. You won't be so gentle forever.”</p>
<p>“I will,” Natasha argued. The book slipped out of the paper and into her waiting hands, and she stroked the cover reverently. “The Call of the Wild. What’s it about?”</p>
<p>“Sled dogs,” he said, then waved his hand dismissively. “You know, the point of a book is to read it.”</p>
<p>Natasha hit him with the book, trying her hardest not to smile. “You’re an asshole.”</p>
<p>“Open your other one so I can go back to bed,” he moaned, suddenly remembering his sore head. “You made me drink too much eggnog.”</p>
<p>“Did not,” she retorted. The second gift was an assortment of candy that made her flex her fingers in excitement, but she dropped everything to reach for the jar of Vegemite he had managed to sneak in. “Where did you get this?”</p>
<p>“I have my ways,” he said. “If I tell you you’re not going to eat anything else.”</p>
<p>“I’ve been craving this for so long,” Natasha said, already unscrewing the cap. She dipped a finger in and Clint pretended to gag when she made a great show of licking the black spread off. “Your tastebuds are not sophisticated enough.”</p>
<p>“You woke up in a good mood,” Clint muttered. He groaned, then managed to make his way back to bed without actually having to stand up. “I’m thinking we sleep all day and then go crash Coulson’s evening. Thoughts?”</p>
<p>Natasha grabbed a packet of Swedish Fish and hauled herself over the top of him, claiming her half of the small bed that was against the wall. “We should get Coulson a gift.”</p>
<p>“What do you get that guy?” Clint mumbled. “New tie?”</p>
<p>“We’ll find something,” Natasha said. The sweet scent of the candy surrounded them as she tore into the packet, dropping a handful into her mouth and speaking around it. “How many times have I slept in my own bed this year?”</p>
<p>“Haven’t been counting,” Clint said without opening his eyes. “Probably not much.”</p>
<p>He could imagine Natasha thinking about it, staring at the wall as she munched on her candy. After a minute of silence she shuffled around until he felt her back press against his, feet tangling around his ankles. He relaxed, felt the way that she did too, and wondered if this was simply what they were both used to now; the feeling of their bodies together, the warmth that came from trusting someone enough to turn your back to them. Natasha in his bed, just because she could be.</p>
<p>He could get used to a lot of things.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They woke later than expected, and Natasha crept back to her own room to get changed before they made their impromptu trek back to Coulson’s. The halls were mostly empty, but the few agents that had lingered stared after Natasha as though she had a target painted on her forehead. Clint almost expected someone to say something, sure that gossip had twisted the story beyond what had really happened, but no one spoke a word. He didn’t know if it had anything to do with Natasha’s dark glare. In her beanie and scarf, he didn’t know how they <em>could </em>be scared of her.</p>
<p>They found a gift for Coulson, then paid too much to have it wrapped and let themselves in through his fire escape just for fun. Coulson didn’t seem that surprised to see them, watching their attempt at stealthily climbing through the window in resignation. Clint blamed the hangover for the fact that he knocked a pot plant over on the way through.</p>
<p>“Merry Christmas, sir,” he said.</p>
<p>Natasha held out the perfectly wrapped box. “Merry Christmas, Phil.”</p>
<p>Coulson looked between the two of them, as though waiting to hear some kind of explanation that Clint didn’t have. This was the fourth Christmas Day he was spending with Natasha and he hadn’t really thought about extending their tradition to Coulson too, even though he was the one who had made sure that Natasha could even be here in the first place. Before Natasha, Coulson was the only person Clint had really, truly trusted.</p>
<p>“Was the door too difficult to open?” Coulson finally said.</p>
<p>Clint nodded. “Nat loves the fire escape so I thought I’d let her climb it.”</p>
<p>“We got you a gift,” Natasha said, ignoring Clint’s teasing to step into the living room. She hesitated, then sat directly besides Coulson, thrusting the box into his hands. “You need to open it.”</p>
<p>“You heard the lady,” Clint drawled, throwing himself into the armchair. “Open the gift before we take it back.”</p>
<p>“Thank you, Natasha,” Coulson said. He pretended not to notice Clint’s outcry and tore into the paper, then raised an eyebrow in disbelief. “This is – ”</p>
<p>“An original Captain America trading card from the 1940’s,” Natasha said in a rush, unable to contain her excitement. “Mint condition. We found it on a whim and I know you have others.”</p>
<p>“You remembered that from four years ago?” Coulson asked. “You had been staring at a wall for days and the doctors were convinced you were catatonic.”</p>
<p>“I wasn’t,” Natasha said promptly, but didn’t give any other explanation to what she had actually been doing. Not for the first time, Clint wondered what the hell Coulson had talked to her about for the month that he had left her at SHIELD.</p>
<p>“Thank you,” Coulson said. “This is perfect. I don’t even want to know how you knew I was missing this specific card, but I think this means the set is almost complete.”</p>
<p>“Too bad the guy went into the ice, or else you could get a signature,” Clint teased. He reached into his jacket pocket and tossed a tube of Vegemite into Coulson’s lap. “This is for sending us to Australia in the middle of a heatwave.”</p>
<p>Coulson pulled a face. “Nobody likes this shit.”</p>
<p>“I do,” Natasha argued. “Nobody has <em>taste</em>.”</p>
<p>Clint snorted and scrubbed at his face, still tired even though they had slept all day. He wasn’t complaining, because he knew how lucky they were to be back home for Christmas when crime didn’t stop for the holidays, but parties took it out of him more than dismantling terrorist cells did these days. Was this what old age felt like?</p>
<p>“How about some cocoa?” Coulson said. He stood and took the trading card carefully over to a locked box on top of the mantel, blocking it from view so that Clint couldn’t get a good look at the code. “The heater died last night, so it’s a little cold in here.”</p>
<p>Clint hadn’t even noticed the chill to the air until Coulson said something. He glanced at Natasha and lifted a shoulder in question, and she gave him a look that didn’t mean anything, except he knew exactly what she was thinking. The corner of her lip twitched and he laughed, the sound escaping him without his control. Natasha rolled her eyes and pulled her scarf from around her neck, and he stole the seat beside her before Coulson came back.</p>
<p>“We’d love some cocoa,” he called. He draped his arm over Natasha’s shoulders and leant his head against hers. “You having a good Christmas?”</p>
<p>“I always have a good Christmas,” she replied. “You don’t give me a choice.”</p>
<p>“Is that a bad thing?” he asked.</p>
<p>She shook her head. “No. How could it be, when I have this?”</p>
<p>“What’s this?” Clint murmured.</p>
<p>“Lots of things,” she said cryptically. “Sometimes I don’t know the feeling well enough.”</p>
<p>“That’s okay. You don’t have to tell me. I just know with you.”</p>
<p>“Is that right?” Natasha whispered, and Clint forgot where they were for a second; forgot that Coulson was just in the kitchen making cocoa, forgot that they had been in the same position the night before, so close to <em>something</em> that they were both too afraid to admit. He looked up on instinct, almost expecting to see mistletoe above their heads.</p>
<p>“Yea,” he said eventually. “That’s right, Tasha.”</p>
<p>Coulson had cleaned up after the party, so there wasn’t a sprig of mistletoe in sight, just the two of them on the couch bathed in the glow from the city lights outside. There wasn’t mistletoe, but Natasha’s eyes lingered on his lips before meeting his gaze, and it felt kind of like the world stopped when he leant in; like the world was holding its breath as well, waiting for the spell to break.</p>
<p>Except his lips met hers, so softly that he thought he was dreaming it for a long moment, until he felt her hand too, coming up to cup his cheek like she had done just last night. His arm dropped from her shoulders down to her waist, pulling her a little closer as he kissed her again, slowly, sweetly, savouring the moment before it inevitably ended.</p>
<p>It was the sound of Coulson closing a cabinet that made them pull apart. Clint couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face, and it made Natasha smile too, her eyes bright and shining as she pressed her forehead against his shoulder. Clint pressed a kiss to the crown of her head, rubbing his thumb across her hip bone while he internally screamed about what had just happened. He had <em>kissed</em> Natasha.</p>
<p>“This,” Natasha said softly. “This is the feeling.”</p>
<p>Clint knew what she meant. He closed his eyes and took it all in, composed himself the way that Natasha was, so that by the time Coulson came in with the cocoa he was back in the armchair and the flush had faded from her cheeks. He took his cocoa and listened to his handler recount old missions with Fury, and all the while he couldn’t stop watching Natasha; the way her breath fogged in the cool air, the way she cupped her cocoa with two hands to try and warm up. The way she smiled secretly every time she met his eyes, and he smiled back, in love but not quite ready to say it yet.</p>
<p>Clint knew what she meant. He felt it, too.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. 2009</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>it's the last christmas in july chapter that's getting posted in july and frankly i am ready for this hell month to be over she has not been kind to me 😔 but on that note, one good thing did happen and miss taylor swift dropped a whole ass album out of nowhere, officially saving 2020 for me. if you haven't already go stream folklore she is everything i needed at this point in my life and you bet there'll be some clintnat fics in the future based on songs (also no one talk to me about how seven already fits my baby the days were bright red i've been crying over it for days)</p><p>warnings: there's not much tbh just a small sex scene and also ᵈᵉᵃᵗʰ ᶦ ᵃᵐ ˢᵒ ˢᵒʳʳʸ</p><p>pls remember everything i gave you in chapter 4 bc i cannot guarantee that the next chapter will be any kinder 😊</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
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    <strong>2009</strong>
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</blockquote><p> </p><p>Natasha folded her arms over her chest, staring unflinchingly back at Fury from across the table. Clint glanced back and forth between them, waiting to see who would crack first. From beside him, Coulson sighed, sensing the impending meltdown Natasha was about to have over the bodysuit they wanted her to wear.</p><p>“It can hide weapons,” Coulson said carefully. He was trying to be diplomatic, even though he hadn’t thought to give them a heads up about the last-minute details of the mission before their meeting with Fury. Clint couldn’t really blame the guy; he wouldn’t have wanted to drop this on Natasha, either.</p><p>“Multiple weapons,” Fury added. “Easily accessed and easily hidden.”</p><p>“That doesn’t –” Natasha began, huffing in frustration. “That’s not the point.”</p><p>“So explain the point then,” Fury said. “The dossier has already been changed once, Romanoff. We can't be re-writing things this late in the game.”</p><p>“In all fairness, we didn’t know <em>this </em>was gonna be the outcome,” Clint spoke up. “I thought we were just going to ditch the whole suburban parent gig when Agent Sanchez decided she didn’t want to give us her baby anymore.”</p><p>“Can you blame her?” Fury muttered.</p><p>Coulson pinched the bridge of his nose. “This neighbourhood is full of young couples with children, Barton. It makes sense that to become a target, one must –”</p><p>“Have a child or whatever, I got that bit.” Clint waved him off, then pointed at the garment that had been thrown in the corner of the room by Natasha. “This though? It’s not a bit much?”</p><p>“It’s a pregnancy suit,” Coulson said in exasperation. “It’s not nearly as difficult as you seem to think it is.”</p><p>Natasha was frowning so hard that Clint thought she might shut down or run, whichever came first. She was at the other end of the boardroom table, too far away for him to try and refocus her attention. He wasn’t really sure what her main issue with the fake pregnancy belly was, but he figured it might have something to do with being restricted in her movements, even if it <em>wasn’t </em>really that bad. Still, he wasn’t the one who had to wear it, and if she wasn’t comfortable with this aspect of the mission then he wouldn’t push it.</p><p>“This is deep undercover,” Fury said seriously. “This is something that I only trust with the two of you. If I need to send Barton with Hill, I’ll do it, but I won't be happy.”</p><p>“Natasha?” Coulson asked gently. He was trying to avoid the tantrum they were all expecting, though Clint thought it was a little too late for a soft voice. “What’s the problem?”</p><p>Natasha uncrossed her arms to stretch them out in front of her. “It’s the…”</p><p>“She thinks it’ll be restrictive,” Clint said. She let her arms fall back to her sides and gave him a grateful look, and he grinned back at her in return. “It can carry as many guns as you want, but if she can't <em>move</em>…”</p><p>“Why don’t you try it on?” Coulson suggested. “See for yourself if you have much movement.”</p><p>Natasha considered him, then stood and walked stiffly over to where she had previously flung the suit in anger. She took it with her to the bathroom and Clint kept his attention diverted as Fury and Coulson spoke in low tones about their dwindling faith in the mission. Clint could play his part well enough, and on a good day Natasha could slip into whatever was handed to her with less than a seconds notice, but there was <em>something </em>about this mission that was setting her on edge and he couldn’t help but feel the same way.</p><p>He didn’t know if the problem was actually rooted in whatever was currently happening between them, if he could even call it anything to begin with. The kiss on the couch at Coulson’s last year had opened a can of worms Clint hadn’t really expected, and they had yo-yoed back and forth since then; sometimes kissing, sometimes making out like teenagers after a particularly stressful mission, but never going any further. Natasha was scared, he knew that, because he was a little scared too and sometimes it didn’t seem worth potentially ruining their partnership.</p><p>And then they came together again, and he knew that he couldn’t just go back. He loved her, and no amount of tiptoeing around the truth would change that. She wanted it too, he could tell by the way she hesitated after pulling away, but her fears had always had some control over her life and this time she couldn’t shake it. He was sure that they could make it work, that they would fall into this as easily as they had fallen into partners and friends, and until she was ready he would simply wait.</p><p>The door opened and Natasha re-entered the room, wearing just the bodysuit and her bra. Clint tried to look reassuring, because without clothes over the top the whole thing seemed kind of ridiculous, though the belly was much more life-like than he had imagined.</p><p>“How does it feel?” Coulson asked after a beat.</p><p>“Stupid,” Natasha growled. She folded her arms in the only space she had available, between the top of the silicone belly and her breasts. “I look stupid.”</p><p>“No one will see the actual bodysuit,” Coulson told her. “With clothes on, it will just look like a bump.”</p><p>“It’s pretty big, though,” Clint said. He couldn’t take his eyes off the fake bellybutton. “Is it heavy?”</p><p>“Not really,” Natasha muttered sullenly. “I can move.”</p><p>She walked back and forth, then squatted and twisted, demonstrating the range of movement. Fury looked pleased, which Clint took to mean that they would be going through with whatever this was. He supposed it was safer than Agent Ryan giving them her toddler, but it was a little weird to look at.</p><p>“Natasha’s cover is eight months pregnant,” Coulson said. “Most of the pregnant women have been attacked as close to their due date as possible, so we’re giving you some wiggle room.”</p><p>“Right,” Clint drawled. “You sure she can get a gun in there?”</p><p>“If you think I’m about to send Romanoff in with a disadvantage that can't be weaponised, then you’ve got another thing coming,” Fury snapped. His features softened just slightly as he turned back to Natasha, his good eye fixed firmly on her face. “What do you think, Natasha?”</p><p>She pursed her lips, looking for a moment like she actually <em>would</em> start screaming her displeasure about the whole situation. Then she nodded instead, and Clint felt the room collectively let out a sigh of relief. “It’s okay.”</p><p>“Good,” Fury said. “We’ll go through your profiles again and then you’ll be dismissed until wheels up. Any questions?”</p><p>Clint shook his head. “No, sir.”</p><p>“You can take that off now, Natasha,” Coulson said. “We’ll have it fitted out for you before you leave.”</p><p>Natasha didn’t say anything as she went back to the bathroom. Clint watched her go, wanting to know what she really thought about the whole thing. It was hard to know where she stood, because last he checked she had been excited to be heading undercover with him and now she looked like she would rather have her teeth pulled, and both of those expressions were interchangeable with each other. It wouldn’t be so bad if she just told him. He knew not to expect it, though.</p><p>He didn’t mean to lose focus after that, but Fury made it too easy. He watched instead the way Natasha read the dossier, the way her shoulders curled inwards against the draft in the room and her eyes swallowed every word whole until they were swimming in her veins with her blood. Watching Natasha work was almost as thrilling as kissing her. Almost, because nothing bet the feeling of her lips on his and her arms around his neck and the longing that swam between them.</p><p>Natasha met his gaze and smiled softly, and he spent the rest of the meeting thinking about how it was only getting more difficult to let her go.</p><p> </p><p>“This is the worst thing SHIELD has made me do.”</p><p>Clint raised an eyebrow. “I thought crawling through the sewers in Hong Kong was the worst thing they’ve ever made you do?”</p><p>Natasha glared at him. “I was only in there for a couple of hours. This is <em>weeks</em>.”</p><p>“I know,” Clint said patiently. “I was there then and I’m here now, and I can tell you which one I prefer.”</p><p>“And yet somehow you managed to avoid wading through shit <em>and </em>wearing this thing,” Natasha muttered. She shoved the pregnancy suit into her tac bag and struggled to zip it back up with the silicone belly poking out. “I look like an idiot.”</p><p>“You look like a perfectly average pregnant woman,” he told her. “It’s fine, Tash. You’re gonna have those housewives spilling their secrets in no time.”</p><p>Natasha gave up on her bag and sat heavily on her bed beside him. It wasn’t often that they spent time in Natasha’s room, thought Clint felt that it had a certain air to it that his room didn’t; a kind of tranquillity that she had managed to bring to the space over the last four years. The only personal belongings she kept were her books and the koala that had adorned their Christmas tree in Australia, and yet Clint felt surprisingly at home there.</p><p>“At least it’s with you,” Natasha conceded after a moment. “I’m not sure I could pretend to be married to anyone else.”</p><p>“You could probably fake-marry Maria,” he said. “Lucky for me that the mission specifically requires my presence.”</p><p>“What kind of psychopath steals babies from pregnant women?” Natasha frowned. “I don’t like it.”</p><p>Clint let his hand fall over Natasha’s, gently entwining his fingers with hers. “We’re going to be fine, okay? We get to live in a fancy house and pretend to do what normal people do.”</p><p>“You’re forgetting the part about babies being harvested and kidnapped,” she deadpanned. “Tell me how that’s normal.”</p><p>“I don’t know about that bit,” Clint murmured. “But I know it’ll just be <em>normal </em>for me to kiss you.”</p><p>Natasha rolled her eyes. “Oh yea?”</p><p>“Yea,” Clint breathed, turning into her so he could capture her lips in a slow, sweet kiss. “And you can kiss me whenever you want, too.”</p><p>“Who said I wanted to kiss you?” Natasha teased. She shoved him back so she could straddle his lap and he let his hands creep beneath her shirt, running along the smooth skin of her hips. “Maybe I just want to get the drop on you.”</p><p>“Nice try,” Clint mumbled. He kissed her again, felt her deepen it until he wasn’t sure he was even breathing anymore; until he wasn’t sure if she was breathing for him or if they had become one heart that pumped steadily for them both. Things were always more intense with her. He couldn’t remember a time that they weren’t. </p><p>It didn’t take long for their shirts to end up on the floor, and then Clint was knocking the little koala aside so he could flip Natasha onto her back and swallow the laughter that erupted from her chest. He loved the little sounds she made, the little sighs and moans and giggles that only he could elicit from her, and it meant <em>something</em>. It meant something to love her, and it meant something to know her, and he wasn’t about to give it up. Not even when she inevitably tensed, seconds or hours later, and he was forced to drag his lips from her skin.</p><p>“I can't,” Natasha whispered. She sat up and leant her head against his shoulder, and he could feel her heart racing even with the distance between their chests. “I can't ruin this.”</p><p>“It’s not going to change anything,” he murmured. “Tash, it’s not going to <em>ruin </em>us.”</p><p>“Nothing good ever lasts,” Natasha admitted, and her sadness wrapped in tendrils around his wrists, dragging him with her into its depths. “I can't risk this. I know how it works out.”</p><p>“It’s not always like that. Some things are worth the risk.”</p><p>Natasha didn’t move her head, but he could detect her small smile beneath the curtain of hair that covered her face. “You’re not someone I’m willing to lose.”</p><p>Clint gently brushed her hair aside, pressing a kiss to the top of her shoulder. She glanced at him and he gently reached up to cup her cheek, thumb brushing over her soft skin until he could tilt her chin up to meet him. When he kissed her this time it was a promise. When she kissed him back, it was an affirmation. And maybe, <em>finally</em>, they were on the same page.</p><p> </p><p>The house was big, with high ceilings and a brand-new kitchen and the kind of bed that just <em>looked </em>sinful. There was a fake nursery they were supposed to decorate for their fake baby over the next however many weeks and enough empty cupboards that Natasha could easily stow at least two guns per room, and the whole place was so clean that it gave Clint a bad vibe right off the bat. SHIELD needed to hire new interior decorators.</p><p>“Home sweet home,” Clint said, dumping his bag by the kitchen bench. He surveyed the open living space and checked his sightlines through the front window before leaning casually against the counter. “What do you think, <em>honey</em>?”</p><p>Natasha had been wearing a frown ever since they had left SHIELD. “I think the sooner this is over the better.”</p><p>“Could be waiting a while,” Clint snorted. “Let’s just enjoy the cable and free groceries while we can.”</p><p>“Easy for you to say,” Natasha muttered. Her hand dropped stiffly onto the top of the silicone belly, because no amount of training had convinced her that <em>this </em>was a good idea. “We can trade places if you like.”</p><p>“Nah, I’m good,” Clint smiled. “How about I make us some dinner and you check that the bed is ready, and then we’ll call it a night and work on influencing people tomorrow?”</p><p>Natasha’s eyes met his, the only part of her face that looked completely like herself. Their covers were typical newlyweds; touchy and almost too cute, the type of couple that hadn’t quite left the honeymoon phase yet. He wasn’t going to complain. Not when she closed the gap between them, and <em>especially</em> not when she gave him the filthiest kiss of his life.</p><p>Clint struggled to catch his breath. “What was that for?”</p><p>“Cooking dinner,” Natasha smirked, pulling away from him again. “I’m going to have a shower.”</p><p>“I could join you?” Clint asked hopefully, even if he already knew the answer. He waggled his eyebrows at her anyway, just in case it changed her mind.</p><p>“Dinner,” she insisted. “If you’re lucky, we can eat in the new bed.”</p><p>“Coulson will be scandalised,” he joked, watching her roll her eyes before leaving. The smile fell from his lips and he sighed, running a hand through his hair.</p><p>It was getting harder to pull away. Clint didn’t care about sex, because he just wanted to <em>be </em>with her, and he didn’t really mind what that looked like as long as they were together. He loved her so much it made his chest ache; like he was in a movie and all he could do was clutch at his heart and hope to Hell that he got the girl in the end, and if he didn’t then he would probably die, because there were only two logical endings in Hollywood romcoms. He didn’t think a broken heart would be enough to take him out, but still.</p><p>He rummaged around in the fridge and managed to find enough ingredients to make homemade pizza, and then spent the next half hour listening to the sound of the shower and acquainting himself with the oven. He could see himself getting used to the house, even though they would hopefully be home and back in their tiny SHIELD quarters by Christmas. He turned the thermostat up as he passed through the lounge with a pizza in each hand, finding Natasha sitting on the bed towel drying her hair.</p><p>“Bon appetite,” he said, brandishing the plate in front of her face. “Pizza for the lady, with extra cheese and pineapple because you’re insane.”</p><p>Natasha’s eyes lit up. “Pineapple is good on <em>everything</em>. You’re just a child.”</p><p>“Speaking of,” Clint muttered, tilting his head towards the fake belly she had stuffed haphazardly in the walk-in robe. “Aren’t you supposed to be <em>with child</em>?”</p><p>“I’m not sleeping with it,” Natasha declared stubbornly. “The curtains are closed and I checked for bugs so we’re fine. If they try and break in to kidnap me in the night at least I’ll be able to move faster.”</p><p>“Calm down, Romanoff,” he teased. He sat himself down on the free side of the bed, though it wasn’t long before Natasha had pressed herself against his side. “I didn’t really want to sleep with the weird stomach either.”</p><p>“Like it would bother you.”</p><p>Clint lifted a shoulder. “You can't keep to yourself. At some point in the night you’ll probably be on top of me.”</p><p>Natasha chewed her pizza thoughtfully. There was a TV on the wall opposite the bed, but Clint didn’t think it was worth turning on. They would probably be asleep soon anyway, partly so they could get up early and canvas the neighbourhood but also because it had been a long drive from New York to West Virginia. The Quinjet would have been quicker, but apparently landing million-dollar aircraft in a quiet suburban street was a dead giveaway that they weren’t who they said they were.</p><p>“I don’t have to sleep in your bed,” Natasha said eventually. “If it’s too much, I can stay in my own room. I should… I should do that anyway.”</p><p>“No,” Clint said quickly, too quickly to be able to brush it off casually. “I don’t mind. It’s totally fine. I don’t even care about the belly that much.”</p><p>“Still,” Natasha insisted, staring pointedly at her pizza. “I just barged in on you without ever asking. I should have stopped years ago.”</p><p>“You’re not always in my bed,” Clint protested.</p><p>“No, but I’m in there more than my own.”</p><p>Clint frowned and picked at some ham on his pizza. He couldn’t quite tell if this was Natasha’s subtle way of telling him that she didn’t want to be around him as much anymore, that she wanted to end whatever <em>this</em> was. He didn’t, and it made his heart ache in an entirely new way; almost like the loss of a limb that he could still feel throbbing in the dark.</p><p>“I don’t…” he started. He took a breath and tried to summon the courage to say the words that were still caught on wire in his throat. “I don’t mind, Tasha. If it’s what you want it’s not a big deal but don’t… don’t feel like it’s too much. I really like having you here.”</p><p>“Psych told me that I needed to stop,” Natasha said softly. “Two years ago. I <em>should have </em>stopped. And I couldn’t but I don’t understand why.”</p><p>“What do you want to do now?” he asked.</p><p>Natasha rested her head on his shoulder and tapped her fingers against the back of his hand. “I want to stay.”</p><p>“Okay,” Clint said. He turned his hand over so he could hold hers, squeezing her fingers gently. “I want you to stay, too.”</p><p>“It’s so hard,” she whispered, and this time Clint didn’t have to hear the rest of her sentence. A year had passed and everything had changed except for the one thing that mattered the most. He knew it because he felt it too. Why couldn’t she see that he felt it too?</p><p>“Yea,” he said instead. “I know.”</p><p> </p><p>By the end of the first week, Clint was ready to pull his hair out. He had made at least one friend though, and Natasha had half the neighbourhood fawning over her belly every second, so they were calling it progress and trying not to roll their eyes every time a housewife rolled up with a lasagne for them. There was a new one on the bench from earlier, though he couldn’t remember the name of the woman who had dropped it off.</p><p>“This is the fifth pasta bake we’ve been given,” Clint said, mournfully pushing a tomato around on his plate. “Kinda wish we just had a steak or something.”</p><p>Natasha lifted a shoulder. “I don’t mind. I don’t have to cook.”</p><p>“Since when do you cook?” Clint snorted. Natasha raised her eyebrows and he waved his fork at her pointedly. “I have <em>never </em>seen you cook.”</p><p>“I can cook,” she insisted, hands on her hips. “I’ll cook dinner tonight.”</p><p>“Right,” Clint drawled. “I would like to see it.”</p><p>Natasha rolled her eyes and started to shrug into her coat, huffing as she fought to get the clothing around the belly. Clint was looking forward to their day, mainly because they were getting a Christmas tree for their fake house but also because Natasha in a beanie made his heart stutter and his knees shake until all he could do was kiss her senseless. Already their mission was looking to be longer than scheduled and despite his reservations at the beginning, he was starting to feel a little better about the whole thing.</p><p>“The sooner we leave, the quicker I can take this off,” she said. “If you give me that look one more time, I’ll force you to wear it.”</p><p>Clint dumped his plate in the sink and held his hands up in surrender. “Reading you loud and clear, Romanoff.”</p><p>They locked the house and piled into the car, driving the short way to the Christmas tree farm in silence. It was unsettling, to be doing this with her now; they had started this tradition four Christmases ago and it was supposed to be for <em>them</em>, a way to experience something mundane in a world that often seemed too harsh. Now, they were wearing different faces and trying to avoid the sea of emotions that currently separated them, and he hadn’t wanted it to be like this for the holidays.</p><p>“There’s Eva,” Natasha said, pasting on a smile and waving to the woman who stood in the carpark with her hand curled around a Starbucks cup. “Don’t forget to thank her for the lasagne.”</p><p>“All I'm asking for are some cookies,” Clint muttered. “Why doesn’t anyone on the street bake?”</p><p>“I can't see Declan.” Natasha ignored him, craning her neck to see who else was wandering around the farm. “You’re going to need to gossip.”</p><p>“I can hold the baby,” Clint suggested. “See if you can talk Eva into admitting who she thinks is running a baby smuggling ring. Would make our jobs easier.”</p><p>“I’m not going to do that,” Natasha muttered. “Not so blatantly, anyway.”</p><p>Clint shrugged and got out of the car, playing his part of dutiful husband by walking around the back to open Natasha’s door. He held her hand and helped her out and they both pretended that it was a struggle, shuffling in the snow and kissing, once, as though they hadn’t seen each other for days.</p><p>“Look at you two!” Eva called. She was a typical PA mother, with an Orange County attitude and extensions that looked two years old. Clint had never met another person as judgemental as Eva, and somehow she had become Natasha’s best friend in the short span of time they had been there. “You’d think this was your honeymoon.”</p><p>“Our honeymoon was much warmer,” Clint said. “Though Ally is just as beautiful now as she was then.”</p><p>A flush spread across Natasha’s cheeks that had nothing to do with the cold air. “Please. I look like a whale.”</p><p>“You’re <em>glowing</em>, sweetie,” Eva gushed, hand flying to rest against the fake belly without asking. “C’mon munchkin, give me a kick.”</p><p>“I think he’s sleeping,” Natasha said. “We both usually nap after lunch, but Ben really wanted to get a good tree this year.”</p><p>“We’re probably still too late,” Clint said dejectedly. “But next year we’ll be picking the biggest tree there is for our boy’s first Christmas.”</p><p>Eva pulled her hand away from Natasha to instead clutch at her chest. “That is just the sweetest damn thing. You’re so close now anyway, you might even go before Christmas this year!”</p><p>“I hope not,” Natasha replied softly. “I want to keep him tucked up in there for as long as possible.”</p><p>“It’s a blessing,” Eva said, then seemed to remember that she had left her own baby unattended in the pram by the entrance. “Jada’s first Christmas was so special. Do you mind if we walk with you a while?”</p><p>“Of course not,” Clint forced himself to say. He held Natasha’s hand and fell into step beside her, peeking into the pram as they walked. “Hey Jada. Look at your hair!”</p><p>Natasha glanced in too. “It’s so dark and long. Where does she get it from?”</p><p>“My hair was like this when I was little,” Eva said. “Then I ruined it with cheap dye. I wonder if little baby Thomason will have your hair, Ally?”</p><p>“I hope not,” Natasha said, but Clint could tell she was beginning to get distracted by the trees around her. Her fingers tapped against her belly and he smiled despite himself.</p><p>“He’ll be a little firecracker if he does,” Clint joked. “We might head down here and see if there’s any trees at the back.”</p><p>“Okay lovebugs,” Eva replied, and Clint fought the urge to screw his nose up at the name. “Don’t forget to say buh-bye before you leave!”</p><p>“We won't,” Natasha promised, and they finally split from their annoying neighbour. “Eva can <em>talk</em>.”</p><p>“I could out-talk her,” Clint said. He swung their hands and revelled in the fact that he could hold her hand without even being undercover. He loved the feeling of her small fingers wrapped around his. “Jada is cute.”</p><p>“Most babies are cute,” she said. “I’m not sure any of these women could convincingly pull off this kind of operation.”</p><p>“Wasn’t Agatha our number one suspect yesterday?” he asked.</p><p>Natasha shrugged. “Only because she was asking extremely personal questions about my vagina.”</p><p>“<em>What?</em>” Clint wheezed. “You left that part out.”</p><p>“I didn’t leave it out,” Natasha countered, but Clint shook his head and cut her off.</p><p>“I would <em>definitely </em>remember you telling me that detail. What the fuck did she want to know?”</p><p>“She asked if I had discharge,” Natasha muttered, and Clint regretted asking immediately. “I’m not sure if I was supposed to say yes or no.”</p><p>“Too much,” Clint moaned. “This is too much. I need a drink.”</p><p>“<em>I </em>need a drink,” she snapped. “Let’s pick a tree and go home so I can take my clothes off and get drunk.”</p><p>“Coulson won't like that,” Clint protested half-heartedly. “You said you were gonna cook dinner, too.”</p><p>“Fine,” Natasha moaned. She marched him over to a tree and dropped his hand, folding her arms over her belly. “Go on then. Test it.”</p><p>“I taught you how to test it, remember?” he said, even as he snapped a needle off the tree and bent it. Natasha’s face changed before his eyes, her frustration and worry melting away into pure joy. “Admit it. You just like making me do all of the dirty work.”</p><p>“I remember,” Natasha said. “You taught me how to do something with my hands that didn’t cause pain.”</p><p>Clint swallowed the sudden lump in his throat. “You do a lot of things with them that aren’t destructive, Tasha.”</p><p>She rolled her eyes at him, lips pulling up at the sides. “It’s Ally, honey. Don’t make me thing you’re having an affair.”</p><p>Clint scoffed and followed her to the next tree, repeating his previous actions to discover that this one was old, too. Natasha led him around the farm and they stopped to chat to the few familiar faces they saw, eventually finding a tree that would just have to do the job. It wasn’t great, but the look on Natasha’s face wasn’t entirely faked. He let someone else tie it to the car and stood off to the side with Natasha and Eva, pulling faces at Jada so he didn’t have to contribute to the conversation.</p><p>“We almost didn’t move here,” Natasha was saying. “We saw on the news – ”</p><p>“The murder of that poor lady?” Eva interrupted. “God, my heart aches for her. If anyone tried to take Jada from me I’d…”</p><p>Clint wasn’t surprised to see that Eva was close to tears, because the crime had been gruesome even by his standards, and having a kid always made things harder. They were too good to be caught up in something like this. Natasha rested her hand on Eva’s arm, offering what little comfort she could.</p><p>“It just doesn’t make sense,” Eva continued. “How anyone could do that to a woman I don’t know.”</p><p>“It made me so worried,” Clint said, eyes settling on Natasha. “I would do anything to protect her. God, if something happened to her… I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.”</p><p>Natasha stared back at him, her face carefully constructed to show him the look he would expect to see on Ally’s face. “Nothing will happen to me, Ben.”</p><p>“As long as you don’t get too close to Agatha, you should be fine,” Eva interjected. Jada made a noise and she pushed the pram back and forth carelessly, continuing without being prompted. “She lost her baby a few years ago, and they’ve been struggling to fall pregnant again ever since. She gets a bit obsessive. She cut some of Jada’s hair off once!”</p><p>“Jesus,” Clint muttered. “Thanks for the heads up.”</p><p>“Don’t be strangers,” Eva told them. “Having a baby is scary enough without all of this nonsense. If you need anything, just give me a holler.”</p><p>“Thank you,” Natasha said sweetly. She let Clint open the door for her and hauled herself in, waving out the window as they pulled out of the parking lot. Clint let out a breath and rolled his shoulders, trying to shake the feeling of unease that had washed over him.</p><p>“Maybe you weren’t so wrong about Agatha,” he said.</p><p>Natasha shrugged one shoulder. “We should tell Coulson.”</p><p>They spent the rest of the trip in silence, and Clint had to bring the Christmas tree inside on his own after Natasha reminded him that a pregnant woman technically shouldn’t be lifting anything that heavy. He set it up in the living room and went for a shower, spending a few extra minutes under the warm spray thinking about his words from earlier. It hadn’t been a lie, and that was the thing that scared him the most about this whole relationship. That he would die for her without question, because it was easier than seeing her in pain again.</p><p>By the time he was finished, Natasha had two plates set at the counter and was back to wearing her own clothes with the fake belly nowhere to be seen. She smiled at him softly and his heart backflipped, and all he could do was cross the room and kiss her, hands cupping her cheeks to pull her closer. Natasha kissed him back, tongue teasing his mouth open and hands clutching at his shirt as though she couldn’t physically let go.</p><p>Clint stood between her legs and reached his hand under her sweater, trailing his fingers up her creamy skin until he could feel the curve of her breast. Natasha pushed into him, exhaling on a moan that turned his brain to static, and it took everything in him not to lift her and carry her to bed then and there. She pulled back slightly, lips lingering on his cheek.</p><p>“I made dinner,” she whispered.</p><p>“Oh yea?” he murmured. He forced his eyes open and took in the sight of her; cheeks flushed, pupils dilated and lips so kiss swollen it should be criminal. “Can it wait?”</p><p>She smiled. “No. I made it just for you.”</p><p>Clint didn’t let his arousal turn into frustration. He took his time disentangling himself from her, then ran a hand through his hair to try and re-circulate blood into his head. He took a seat on the stool beside her and let out a breath at the plate in front of him.</p><p>“Are we sure this is a meal?” he asked carefully.</p><p>“Yes,” Natasha insisted. Her voice was husky and he had to remind himself how to breathe. “I read it in a cookbook.”</p><p>“From what century?” Clint joked, pushing some of the shredded carrot around with his fork.</p><p>“I don’t know. It’s from the cookbook I read at the farm.”</p><p>Clint blinked at her. “You remember the recipe after all these years?”</p><p>“I read that book more than ten times,” Natasha replied easily. “This is just carrot salad.”</p><p>There was something in the salad that Clint couldn’t identify. “Is this a bug? Are you trying to kill me?”</p><p>Natasha used her fingers to pop one of the golden raisins into her mouth. “You wouldn’t know if I was trying to kill you.”</p><p>Clint didn’t say anything, instead taking a hesitant bite of whatever the carrot monstrosity was. It didn’t taste too bad, though he wasn’t convinced that she hadn’t just thrown a bunch of random ingredients into a bowl and hoped for the best. There was <em>pineapple</em>. He forced himself to swallow his mouthful and gave her a reassuring smile. At least she had tried.</p><p>“You know I can take care of myself, right?” Natasha asked eventually.</p><p>“Course I do,” Clint replied. “You’re a badass.”</p><p>“Okay,” Natasha said softly. “I just want you to know that.”</p><p>Clint didn’t know what she was trying to get at, but he let it go. Sometimes it was easier to let Natasha just say what she wanted to without trying to argue with her, and even though he was curious, he figured it probably had something to do with his comments to Eva earlier. He hadn’t been lying and she probably knew that. The look in her eyes hadn’t been entirely Ally.</p><p>They didn’t speak again throughout dinner, or when they were getting ready for bed. Clint laid on his side and watched Natasha crawl in beside him, curling her body away from his. He wanted to reach for her, but he wasn’t sure that she would meet him halfway this time.</p><p> </p><p>Christmas Eve was upon them before they knew it, and they still weren’t any closer to finding out who their murderer was. Agatha was still SHIELD’s main suspect, though she hadn’t done anything other than finally bake them some cookies. Clint had sadly thrown them in the trash after Coulson warned them they could be poisoned. It had been the hardest part of the mission by far.</p><p>They babysat Jada twice, and decorated the Christmas tree with baubles that matched the furniture. Natasha had hung each and every one with care and he was struck, again, by the beauty of her; watching the excitement light up her eyes and shine out of her face made the world seem like a better place, and he just wanted to live in the bubble that her joy created.</p><p>Yet things had changed, albeit subtly, and Clint didn’t know what had gone wrong. She kept to her side of the bed, held his hand in public but became distant again once they were inside, and they hadn’t spoken much since the day at the Christmas tree farm. He knew, deep down, that he had scared her with his admission, because despite it being true it had frightened him as well. That he could care so fiercely about another person was still alien to him.</p><p>He missed her touch. A week of minimal contact didn’t seem like much, but to him it felt like a lifetime. Natasha was unreadable except for when she was sleeping, when all of the things that she wanted to say slipped out in the space between them. Clint felt them settle heavily on his chest and carried them around in his pocket for safekeeping. It hurt, but not in the way he had expected.</p><p>“Did I do something wrong?” he finally blurted. They had only just arrived back from Eva’s after an impromptu Christmas Eve celebration, and the last thing he wanted to do was hash out whatever problem she seemed to have with him. He couldn’t fix it, though, unless he <em>knew </em>what was wrong.</p><p>“No,” Natasha frowned. “Nothing is wrong.”</p><p>“You’re lying,” he said softly. “Don’t lie to me, Nat. What did I do?”</p><p>“Nothing,” she insisted, though there was a new edge to her voice. She made her way to the bedroom and he followed behind her, not willing to give up just yet. “Clint, I’m tired and I just want to sleep.”</p><p>“Okay, but just… if this is because of what I said, I’m sorry.”</p><p>Natasha spun to face him, eyes flashing even as she tugged at the pregnancy suit. “I can take care of myself.”</p><p>“I know,” Clint groaned. “Of course I know that. That doesn’t mean I can't be worried about your safety.”</p><p>“I’m wearing a fake stomach,” Natasha growled, ripping the offending item from her person. “I’m as safe as they come.”</p><p>“You have a giant target painted on your body,” Clint snapped. “<em>Literally</em>. Whoever is doing this doesn’t give a fuck about you.”</p><p>“They’re not the first,” Natasha muttered. “You’re acting like this is more dangerous than that time we snuck into North Korea.”</p><p>Clint clenched his hands into fists and took a deep breath. “Natasha, you weren’t the <em>target </em>in North Korea. I don’t care if Fury gave you a couple of extra guns, okay. What I do care is that we’re using you as bait. God, it honestly worries me that <em>you </em>don’t seem to care.”</p><p>“What do you want me to say?” Natasha hissed. “It’s just a stupid game, Barton. We play pretend and catch the bad guy and go home.”</p><p>“Problem is that I’m not always playing,” he said lowly. “You think it’s just a game when I can’t stop kissing you? When I can't stop <em>touching you</em>?”</p><p>Natasha’s eyes widened. “I can take care of myself.”</p><p>“You don’t understand – ”</p><p>“I do!” she suddenly cried, her voice a pitch higher than it usually was. “I’m not an idiot, Barton. I <em>want </em>you, but everything I want gets taken away. It’s so hard to stop myself from caring. <em>You’re</em> the one who doesn’t understand.”</p><p>Clint let out a shaky breath. “It’s not like that anymore, Tasha.”</p><p>“But it is,” she whispered. “It’s always going to be like this. If I get too close you’ll disappear.”</p><p>“We’re not going to lose each other,” he said carefully. “I know it’s different and it’ll change things but… I can't let my fears ruin this before it even has a chance to begin.”</p><p>“Don’t you see?” she asked. “Don’t you see how much this is fucking killing me?”</p><p>Clint took a chance and stepped forward until they were toe to toe, fingers itching to wrap his arms around her. He didn’t know if he would ever be able to convince her that it was okay to be scared about things, that not everything had to end just because it was different. If it didn’t work out, if they left this mission and never spoke again, he would be okay with it if he could tell her the truth. He wasn’t willing to let her go without telling her, first.</p><p>“Tasha, I’ll give you whatever you want,” he told her. “And I’m okay with waiting, or just forgetting that the whole year ever happened. What you want is more important to me than anything and I – ”</p><p>Natasha cut him off by pressing her lips to his, standing on tiptoes so she could wrap her arms around his neck. He kissed her back immediately, and they stumbled backwards until the back of her knees hit the bed and she sat, pulling him with her without breaking contact. His knee pushed between her thighs and she gasped, grinding herself against him as her hands ran under his shirt.</p><p>“Have we finished arguing?” Clint breathed, sucking a mark into her neck that had her digging her nails into his back.</p><p>“I got sick of listening to you try to tell me to just go for what I want,” she said on the back of a moan. “That was the point, right?”</p><p>“The point was that I love you, actually,” Clint admitted, and he felt Natasha laugh from where she was pressed up against his chest.</p><p>“I guess that works, too.”</p><p>He didn’t really know if this qualified as the kind of talk they needed to have, but he wasn’t about to stop and get into the details of it all now. They were on the same page, or else Natasha wouldn’t be pushing her shirt up and placing his hand on her breast, and he wouldn’t be teasing her nipple while he worked at the front of her jeans, and they wouldn’t crash in a heap of limbs in the middle of the bed like two horny teenagers on prom night.</p><p>“Want you,” Natasha panted. She pushed her panties aside and lowered herself onto him, and the feeling of it all, the <em>closeness </em>between them, was strong enough to make his legs shake. “Fuck, Clint. I <em>want </em>you.”</p><p>“You got me,” he told her, thumb brushing over her clit as he pushed into her. It was quick and intense and not at all how he had imagined it playing out, but it was them and it was perfect. “Come on, Tasha. Come for me.”</p><p>He felt Natasha clench and then her forehead dropped onto his shoulder, mouth open on a silent moan as tremors racked her body. He felt it right down to his toes and it wasn’t long before he was falling after her, clinging to her body like she was an anchor tying him to Earth. She kissed him slowly, sweetly, thumb brushing over his cheek in a caress he didn’t feel lucky enough to receive.</p><p>“That was embarrassingly quick,” he murmured, lips grazing her earlobe. The only clothing they had lost along the way were Natasha’s jeans, and he was struck with the sudden urge to map every inch of her body.</p><p>“That’s the last time I deny myself something I want,” Natasha whispered. She grinned at him and he cupped her cheek, basking in the glow from her skin. “We have all night to make up for a year of missed opportunities.”</p><p>“Does that mean I can take your clothes off properly?” Clint teased. “I’ve been told I’m very good with my hands.”</p><p>Natasha laughed as he reached under her shirt. “Is this my early Christmas present?”</p><p>“One of many,” he confirmed. He kissed down her neck and felt her heart beating solidly against his palm, and this was the feeling he had been fighting against for too long; the ache and want and care that consumed him whenever he was with her, and he was so absolutely enamoured with her that it took his breath away. “God. <em>I love you</em>.”</p><p>It didn’t seem to be a big enough word to accurately describe the way he felt about her. He cared for her beyond all rationality; beyond anything he had ever learnt from his mother or SHIELD or any of his exes, and it was terrifying and bright and brilliant, and he never wanted the feeling to fade. He never wanted to give it up, even if it was dangerous. Even if he knew Coulson would roll his eyes and tease him. He could bask in her light forever.</p><p>And when Natasha just smiled and rested her hand over his heart he knew it meant, <em>I love you, too</em>.</p><p> </p><p>When Clint woke up Natasha was already out of bed, and the thought of her waiting at the tree was enough to make him launch himself up even though it was early. He brushed his teeth and threw on the Captain America shirt he had stolen from Coulson’s desk years ago, back when bleeding out in the office was still a new situation. Natasha hadn’t put the belly on yet since they weren’t expecting visitors anytime soon, and he used the opportunity to wrap his arms around her middle from behind, pressing a kiss to her cheek.</p><p>“Merry Christmas, Clint,” she said to him, turning her head so he could reach her lips instead.</p><p>“Merry Christmas,” he replied. He took stock of the decoy presents they had been given for their fake unborn child and whistled. “You outdid yourself this year.”</p><p>“Yours is over there,” Natasha laughed. There was a knock at the door and she glanced at him curiously, pulling her cardigan tighter around her body. “Who would that be?”</p><p>Clint frowned and gestured for her to go into the kitchen before he began approaching the door. There were enough weapons in the otherwise empty drawers that it took no time at all for Natasha to be armed to her teeth, and she leant on the counter to cover the obvious flat stomach they didn’t have time to fix. Something felt off; Clint thought of his bow, tucked beside the plates, and hoped Natasha had the good sense to get it out for him.</p><p>He looked through the peep hole and relaxed marginally. “It’s Eva. She has a present.”</p><p>“Great,” Natasha said sarcastically. “I really need to go get the belly.”</p><p>They didn’t have the time, and they both knew it. Clint shrugged and opened the door. “Hey, Eva.”</p><p>“Hey, Ben,” Eva said. “Merry Christmas!”</p><p>“You too,” Clint replied, gesturing for her to enter. “You didn’t bring Jada? We have a gift for her.”</p><p>“Oh, that’s so sweet,” Eva gushed, heading straight to the lounge. “She’s with her daddy, trying to work her new dancing dolly. Oh, Merry Christmas, Ally.”</p><p>“Merry Christmas,” Natasha called. “You really didn’t have to bring a gift.”</p><p>“It’s for baby Thomason,” Eva explained, setting the box with the others under the tree. “He’ll be here soon enough, right? Didn’t you say January 1<sup>st</sup>?”</p><p>“January 5<sup>th</sup> or something,” Clint muttered, feeling the uneasiness in the pit of his gut grow. “Not long now.”</p><p>“I’m sure you said January 1<sup>st</sup>,” Eva insisted. “New Year baby. A lucky baby.”</p><p>“Yes,” Natasha agreed. “I swear, Ben does know these things.”</p><p>Eva didn’t laugh. Clint made his way around the counter to stand beside Natasha, finding his bow leaning against the trash can. There was a gun tucked into the back of her pants and a Widow’s Bite strapped to her wrist and none of it made him feel any better. The bow was just too far out of reach, even though it was only Eva.</p><p>“Do you mind if I grab a glass of water?” Eva asked, moving before she had an answer.</p><p>“I can get it – ” Clint started to say, but then Natasha bumped into him and he realised that she was trying to shuffle her way around the counter so that Eva couldn’t see that she clearly wasn’t pregnant. Coulson would <em>kill </em>them if he found out they had been so careless.</p><p>Eva grabbed a glass from the drying rack and filled it with water from the fridge. “Agatha’s house has the exact same layout. Except her baby’s room was opposite the master.”</p><p>“Were you good friends with Agatha, before everything happened?” Natasha asked.</p><p>Eva shrugged. “She had a cute baby. Pity he went missing.”</p><p>Clint felt his blood turn to ice at her words, and he realised that they had been wrong all along. Agatha was a victim, and Eva – talkative, judgemental Eva – was, in fact, the woman they were looking for. The woman whose baby looked nothing like her. The woman who had memorised Natasha’s due date and popped in unexpectedly when they would least be expecting it.</p><p>“I thought you said she lost the baby?” Natasha said carefully.</p><p>“Yes,” Eva replied. “But he didn’t die. He was kidnapped.”</p><p>“What are you saying?” Clint said, and then before he could fully comprehend what was happening there was a gun pointed at Natasha and Eva had rushed around the side of the counter, fingers reaching to grab Natasha’s arm at the same moment that he reached for her, too.</p><p>He saw the second she realised there was no belly. Saw the shock and anger that flashed across her face so briefly he might have imagined it if she didn’t let out a guttural scream. Saw Natasha reach for her own gun but it was all going to be too quick and Eva’s finger was already on the trigger and she was <em>going to shoot </em>and –</p><p>Clint didn’t feel anything to begin with, but his body reacted regardless, legs crumbling beneath him before he had the thought to catch himself. Natasha’s voice sounded like it was coming from underwater and it hit him, then, the pain; like a fire, like his body was made of exposed nerves and all he could think was that Coulson wasn’t going to be happy he had ruined his shirt.</p><p>He knew he was dying. He tasted blood in his mouth, though he still didn’t know what had happened, his memory fizzing out somewhere between reaching for Natasha’s hand and seeing the blind panic in her eyes. He had jumped, he thought, because he knew he would always jump for her. He knew it the same way he knew he was dying. Like blood in his mouth; like skin on skin. Her skin on his skin. Like a kiss to the cheek, like a kiss to the lips. </p><p>Clint forced himself onto his back through sheer willpower, because he didn’t want to die facedown. He wanted to die looking at her, knowing she was safe. He would feel okay leaving if he could just see her Milky Way eyes one last time, if he could let the glow of her hair lull him to sleep. There was a shout and a bang and another bang, for good measure he supposed. Everything and nothing hurt. </p><p>He wondered if it had felt like this for her, too. If she had felt the prickle of fear that kept him sane enough not to panic, or if it had happened too slowly for that. And it <em>had</em> been slow, in the rubble of a building older than the ghosts of their pasts. It had been slower than the flow of his blood leaving his body; he knew, because he had been there then, and he was here now, and he knew which one he preferred. </p><p>Natasha slammed beside him, and just like that the world lit up, and it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, and he didn’t want it to end, suddenly. He didn’t want this to be the end. </p><p>“You don’t get to die,” Natasha said. Her voice was clearer, or maybe it was just because she was closer. He couldn’t hear anything else except for his own heart, pumping pathetically in a rhythm that wouldn’t keep him alive. “It’s not fair, Barton.”</p><p>“Now we’re even,” he said, ice picks poking at his lungs.</p><p>“You’re not supposed to fucking save me again, Clint.”</p><p>He felt like laughing. He felt like laughing might cause his body to concave. “You don’t get to decide that.”</p><p>“It’s Christmas,” Natasha choked. “It’s… it’s fucking <em>Christmas</em>.”</p><p>Her hands found a spot on his side that he knew should hurt. He reached up to touch her cheek, just to feel something, but she caught his fingers in her own and brought it back down to his stomach. His body trembled like it was really alive and not running a rigged race. He just wanted to touch her, in case. In case he could feel something after. </p><p>“You can’t... you can’t <em>leave</em> me,” Natasha said, her voice caught somewhere on the back of a sob. “You’re the only one who matters and I... <em>I love you</em>, dumbass. I can’t lose you. Not like this. Not when I just got you.”</p><p>He felt Natasha push on his side again, felt her hands slip in too much blood. He was choking on it, all that red, choking so much that it stopped the words from leaving his throat; stopped him from saying “<em>I’m not going anywhere because I love you too. I </em>adore<em> you. And I can’t lose you either</em>.” </p><p>He tried to say it with his eyes instead, but he couldn’t keep them open long enough, and the world slipped slightly out of reach. It wasn’t so bad, to have her there. He felt safe. He was holding her hand and her hair was shimmery gold in the light. </p><p>He wished he could kiss her. He wished for a lot of things.  </p><p> </p>
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<a name="section0006"><h2>6. 2010</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>oh boy i am Sorry for this and i mean that with my whole HEART 🥺 this chapter is like half the size of the other chapters (mainly bc i wrote the whole thing last night at 10pm after being awake since 4am but sTiLl that's fine im an adult) and i am acknowledging that there was technically some stuff i could add but also i kinda just. like her how she is. also my h key is sticking so thats annoying</p><p>warnings: swearing idk also stitching up a wound but that shits nasty so it is NOT graphic</p><p>pls forgive me for this mess 👉🏻👈🏻 i have listened to exile and hoax by ts an unholy amount of times writing this chapter so on that note, here she is!!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
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    <strong>2010</strong>
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</blockquote><p> </p><p>The snow had turned to mud around the cool granite headstones, wilting flowers bowing under the weight of tiny, icy flakes. The cemetery was quiet, tucked away from the sparkling lights of the city. There was a distant hum of noise, like a voice behind a wall; like a whisper between lovers, a breath that stuttered around quiet confessions. Outside, people were celebrating Christmas at the night markets, hands cupped around mugs of cider. It felt a little like a knife twisting in a chest.</p><p>There was a lone woman crouched in front of a headstone, her fingers curled into the cold dirt and her face smeared with dried blood. Her hair fell down her back in a tangle of red knots, clinging desperately to the elastic she had tried to use to tame it. Natasha knew that she had looked worse, though it felt a little different this time; like a piece of her had been carved out and filled with something dark and twisted, and no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t rip it out again. Maybe it <em>was </em>worse, and she just couldn’t feel it anymore.</p><p>She didn’t turn around at the sound of footsteps behind her. She kept her gaze fixed firmly on the headstone, drinking in every chiselled word. The last time she had been in this country she had died. It felt fitting that he would find her here, surrounded by graves that should have borne her name.</p><p>“How’s Budapest treating you?” he asked after a beat.</p><p>Her lips twitched. “I’m not dead this time, so.”</p><p>He crouched beside her, and she fought the urge to cover the words on the headstone. They weren’t hers, even if it felt like they should be, but she wanted to keep them tucked away in a hidden part of her soul. She shared too much of herself with the world now, and she blamed it on <em>him</em> and the way he had given her too many choices except for the one that mattered most. She hadn’t wanted to love him as fiercely as she did, but she couldn’t stop it in the end.</p><p>“I’m not dead either,” Clint said. “Kinda feels like we both dodged a bullet there.”</p><p>Natasha flinched. “You’re forgetting the part where you <em>didn’t </em>dodge it.”</p><p>“Touché,” he muttered. He read the headstone and frowned when he didn’t recognise the name. “Is there a reason we’re sitting in the snow at a cemetery on Christmas Eve?”</p><p>“I don’t know what you’re doing here, but I’m mourning,” Natasha quipped.</p><p>Clint snorted. “I’m here to drag your ass home. You’ve stressed out Coulson more than usual. Going rogue doesn’t look good on the resume, Tash.”</p><p>Natasha didn’t say anything. Clint looked at her, taking in the blood and dirt that covered her face and chest, as well as the gaping hole in her shirt that showcased a similar sized hole in her flesh. She looked like shit, and he didn’t even understand what was really going on, just that she had flown off the radar over a month ago and then popped up in Budapest, of all places, and he had been tasked with finding her again. It had been just as difficult as the first time, all those years ago, except there was more at stake, now. He hadn’t been there to stop her running this time.</p><p>It was easy to say that something had changed with Natasha ever since last year, but Clint knew her better than that. <em>Nothing</em> had changed, because underneath the thick of layer of armour she had reconstructed she was still the same woman who loved Vegemite and Christmas, and those things didn’t go away no matter how deep she buried them. He had jumped in front of a bullet for her though, and she had reacted in the only way she knew how. He couldn’t blame her for that, even if it ached deep within his chest.</p><p>“The grave’s for me,” she said eventually. “The first time I came to Budapest, the time I told you about. I died and they buried me.”</p><p>Clint frowned. “You gonna tell me what really happened?”</p><p>“I had to kill her,” she murmured. “The girl I was impersonating. They needed to bury a body or I wouldn’t have been able to get out. I lived her life for over a year, Clint.”</p><p>“I’m sorry,” he said. “But we’ve got to go, Natasha. You can't stay here.”</p><p>For a second he didn’t think she would come with him, and his heart slammed painfully in his chest. He stood first and waited, trying to remember how to breathe now that he was actually with her and not watching her through the scope of his rifle. It had been <em>so long </em>since he had touched her. He just wanted to kiss her until everything was okay between them again, though he knew it would take more than that this time.</p><p>Natasha eventually pulled herself up, legs trembling beneath her. Clint reached out and grasped her wrist, holding her steady before she collapsed back into the snow, and something about the look on her face reminded him of the first time he had seen her. He didn’t know how much blood she had lost, but the snow was a murky pink beneath where she had been sitting and the state of her shirt left a lot to be desired. He curled his arm around her waist and took the brunt of her weight, feeling the breath of air that left her body at the contact.</p><p>They limped slowly out of the cemetery, moving at a pace that Clint would never usually associate with Natasha. It was stiff and careful, like little baby steps that you missed if you blinked, and it took them longer than he would have liked to get out onto the street. He ignored the festive lights strung between lamp posts and tried to make sense of the street names, praying that they were on the right side of the Danube so he could at least get her into some warmer clothes.</p><p>“You didn’t have to come all the way here,” Natasha murmured. “You could have just called.”</p><p>“Wasn’t so sure you would pick up,” Clint admitted. “Would you have?”</p><p>She shrugged. “Maybe.”</p><p>“You don’t sound very convincing,” he said, but didn’t let it make him angry. He had been angry at her enough over the last year that he felt almost empty of it. “We need to stitch your shoulder.”</p><p>“Not my shoulder,” Natasha told him. She lurched to the side and vomited onto the snow, fingers clutching roughly at his shirt to keep her balance. He rubbed her back and ignored the way she tensed beneath his hand. “My tit.”</p><p>Clint choked. “Your <em>what?</em>”</p><p>“Would you feel better if I said breast?” Natasha smirked, wiping the corner of her mouth. “Last I checked Barton, you had no problem calling them – ”</p><p>“It’s fine,” Clint interrupted. He draped her arm over his shoulder for extra support, noticing that she was leaning on him a little heavier now. “Wanna tell me how that happened?”</p><p>“Fumbled a knife,” she said. “Shouldn’t let people with pointy things get too close to your soft bits.”</p><p>“Right,” he drawled. “How long you been bleeding for?”</p><p>“Long enough,” Natasha slurred. “Not as long as it took you to find me.”</p><p>“Yea well, you didn’t make it fucking easy Tash,” he muttered bitterly. She faltered slightly at his tone but he pulled her on, not wanting to waste any more time out in the cold air. “Let’s get home.”</p><p><em>Home</em> home was a far cry from the enchanted streets of Budapest and the barely civil loop they had fallen into after the mess that had been last Christmas, and Clint found himself briefly yearning for it. The wooden floors of the farm and the tree decorated with hand-me-down ornaments felt like a lifetime ago, when they were different people with different wants and jumping in front of a bullet wouldn’t have caused the same damage as a nuclear fallout. <em>Home</em> and whatever that meant without her in it had never felt so foreign.</p><p>Natasha was quietly resigned beside him. He had lost her somewhere on the Pest side of the Danube and could only assume that was when she had been injured, because the next time he saw her the blood had been fresh and he was still in half a mind to actually find her. Coulson had warned him that there was a reason SHIELD had anti-fraternisation rules and he had ignored him; mostly because the wound was still fresh and the pain meds were just that good, but also because back then Natasha still liked to hold his hand.</p><p>It had fallen apart quickly, whatever it was that they had between them, the edges of their relationship frayed beyond repair. Natasha was angry that he had sacrificed himself for her, and he was angry that she was angry, and for a while all it resulted in was sex that was rough enough to take the heat off. Until it wasn’t, and she was closing herself off in a way he had never imagined, pushing him aside and taking increasingly dangerous solo missions for reasons he had yet to learn. He was angry at her about that, too; that she would risk her life out of some sick need to prove herself, even if he knew it wasn’t really her fault that she had been programmed to think that way.</p><p>“You don’t need to save me,” Natasha said softly, as if she knew what <em>he</em> was thinking, and Clint rolled his eyes.</p><p>“We’re really still going on about that? Get over yourself, Natasha.”</p><p>He hated the harshness of his voice, the way words could roll off his tongue laced with venom and it was easier than apologising. He would never apologise for jumping, and she knew that, but they were past the point of even remembering what they were <em>really </em>sorry for. He loved her, and maybe that was it. Maybe she was waiting for him to take it back so she could feel less guilty about the new scar on his abdomen, the one that she hadn’t touched once since her hands had been slick with the blood from it. It didn’t work like that, though. He couldn’t take it back, even if his chest burned and his stomach felt like a bottomless pit and every time he looked at her he saw stars.</p><p>The safe house was nicer than any of the ones they had shared over the last few years of their partnership, with a cosy fireplace and tiles flecked with gold. Clint helped her unceremoniously through the front door and sat her heavily at the kitchen table, watching the way she almost immediately tipped to one side. Her brow pinched as she brought a shaky hand to press against the wound.</p><p>“You got alcohol in here?” Clint asked, already rummaging through the drawers. He found a set of plastic knives and forks and smiled sadly to himself, wondering briefly if the blood she tasted in her mouth was his now. “Earth to Romanoff?”</p><p>Natasha managed to point a finger in the general direction of the living room. “Good vodka for <em>drinking.</em>”</p><p>“Thought good vodka was for wound dressing?” he joked. He picked through the few belongings she had accumulated in the last week, tossing underwear and spare knives aside. The vodka was half-empty and hidden in the couch cushions; he tried to imagine her draped over the couch, sipping the liquor until it dulled the pain. “Think fast.”</p><p>He didn’t throw it, but Natasha didn’t flinch anyway. She kept her eyes on the carpet and he was reminded of the woman at his kitchen table a lifetime ago. He had never thought that they would fall back into old habits and awkward conversation, had never taken a second to consider what it would be like when they inevitably imploded. Coulson had warned him and he hadn’t listened, and now he was making his bed and lying in it, even if it wasn’t <em>only</em> his fault that things had gotten this bad.</p><p>“Are you gonna let me stitch you up?” he asked.</p><p>“Do what you want,” Natasha murmured.</p><p>Clint pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m asking you a question.”</p><p>“I don’t <em>care</em>,” she huffed. “What do you want me to say?”</p><p>“Yes or no,” he replied drily. “I’m just doing what I’ve been told to do.”</p><p>“Be annoying?”</p><p>He didn’t let her petulant tone bother him. “Make you choose, actually. Or have you forgotten that over the last couple of months as well?”</p><p>Natasha squeezed her eyes shut and Clint forced away his guilt.  He was <em>hurt</em>; hurt more than the bullet that had ripped through his insides, even though it felt a little like that. He had lost her before she had even left the first time, had probably lost her in the instant that his heart stopped beating and she had been forced to watch him die. They told him it had barely been a minute before he was revived. A minute could span decades, though. He knew because she had been crushed for nearly five of them.</p><p>“Fine,” Natasha eventually ground out. “Do it.”</p><p>“Thank you,” he said softly. “You got a kit in the bathroom?”</p><p>She nodded, face pale. The bathroom was small and he found the first aid box shoved behind the toilet like an afterthought, and it probably had been for her. His reflection in the tiny mirror was almost unrecognisable, the stubble he hadn’t shaved since leaving America too scraggly to even <em>call</em> stubble anymore. There was a razor on the countertop that he thought about using to clean himself up until he remembered her waiting for him in the kitchen. When was the last time he had patched her up?</p><p>“So you were stabbed, right?” Clint said when he re-entered the room.</p><p>“I think,” she mumbled. Her hand slipped from her chest and she sluggishly moved it back up to cover the hole in her shirt. “I don’t feel good.”</p><p>“I know you don’t,” Clint said gently. He pulled a chair up beside her and started to unpack his supplies. “Won’t be long and I’ll have you good as new.”</p><p>It was, apparently, the wrong thing to say, because Natasha suddenly lurched to her feet and shot him a look that could cut glass. “How do you determine that a life’s worth saving anyway?”</p><p> Clint sighed. “Sit down before you pass out.”</p><p>“The first time,” Natasha continued, even as she swayed like she was drunk. “What made you hesitate that day? Or did you just like what you saw?”</p><p>“I don’t like what I see right now,” Clint snapped. “Sit your ass down, Natasha. Don’t do this right now.”</p><p>“I want to know,” she spat. Before he could really comprehend what she was doing her shirt was ripped down the middle and she stood before him dirty and bloodied, the image of a woman who had crawled into battle without expecting to come out the other side. “Did you think it would be easier to get me into bed?”</p><p>“It was never fucking like that,” Clint hissed. “God, you <em>know </em>that. Do not throw that in my face right now.”</p><p>Natasha seemed to deflate before his eyes, and as frustrated as he was at her in the moment he couldn’t be mad about the game she was trying to force him to play; the push and pull, her inability to accept his love becoming twisted in her brain until she couldn’t be sure what to believe. Her arm came across her chest in a half-hearted attempt to cover herself, though it did little to hide the mess that had been made of her pale skin.</p><p>“Sit down,” he tried again. “Let me help.”</p><p>Natasha sat, twisting her head so she didn’t have to look at him. She was tense and he hated that a part of it was because of him and the way he had raised his voice. There was a mini bottle of hand sanitiser that he used on his hands, but even in Budapest vodka was as good as they were going to get for her wound. He let her take a swig, for luck, then poured it onto her flesh.</p><p>She let out a hiss of air from between her teeth and dug her nails into her thigh, and he wanted to brush her sweaty hair aside and maybe kiss her cheek, too, tell her it would be okay as soon as he tied the last stitch. He just let his hand rest over hers and tried to imagine her linking their fingers like she might have, once.</p><p>“Son of a bitch,” she muttered, chancing a peek at her mangled flesh. “Look as bad as it feels?”</p><p>Clint winced as he sterilised the needle. “S’pretty bad, Tash.”</p><p>“It’s been a while since you called me that,” she said carefully. He watched the muscles in her neck jump as her jaw clenched. “Been a while since we’ve been in the same room.”</p><p>“Might have something to do with you hightailing it out of the country,” Clint said. “You know, you could have just told me if the sex was that bad.”</p><p>It wasn’t his best work, but it still made her lips pull up at the corners. “The sex was great.”</p><p>“Just great, huh,” he teased. “You’re a tough critic.”</p><p>Natasha didn’t speak as he started stitching, just stared out into the empty space between the kitchen and living room. It <em>had </em>been a while since they were in the same room, and it had been even longer since he had pushed a needle through her skin. His hands didn’t shake, even though his entire being felt like it might come apart at any second if she so much as looked at him a certain way. He <em>wanted </em>her to look at him a certain way.</p><p>“Coulson was worried,” he said eventually. “He cares about you, too.”</p><p>“I was coming back,” Natasha told him, though the unspoken <em>I think </em>hung heavily in the air between them. “I needed to run, Clint.”</p><p>“Thought it was my job to stop you?” he murmured.</p><p>Natasha rubbed her temple, smearing blood across her face. “It’s not your job to do anything for me.”</p><p>“Guess not. Doesn’t make it suck any less though.”</p><p>It was a little awkward stitching near her armpit, so she rested her forearm across his shoulder to give him better access. He dabbed some of the grime away with a wet wipe and kept going, knowing it would be hurting more than she would ever admit.</p><p>“I’ll apologise to Coulson,” Natasha said. “That’s the right thing to do.”</p><p>“Yea,” Clint agreed. He tied the stitch off and reached for some gauze, regarding her closely. “How do you feel?”</p><p>“Fine,” she replied smoothly. “You did a good job.”</p><p>“It’ll scar,” he reminded her absently. “I know that doesn’t bother you.”</p><p>His eyes found the pink mark on the opposite side of her chest and he swallowed, averting his gaze again. She noticed but didn’t say anything, and he couldn’t help but wonder how she was leaving Budapest with another scar that could have been prevented. So many things could have been prevented if they had just <em>talked </em>about it.</p><p>“I don’t know why I came here,” she whispered suddenly. “I don’t know why I had to find the grave and… and <em>see </em>it. I didn’t care then. Why the fuck would I care now?”</p><p>“I don’t know either,” he said. “I think you should lay down for a while, though.”</p><p>Natasha hummed. “You used the good drinking vodka, didn’t you?”</p><p>A part of Clint was concerned that she was either not remembering what had just happened or was just choosing to be difficult about it, because neither of those behaviours were considered normal for Natasha anymore. He stood and held out his hand for her and she stared at him like he had grown a second head, and it only made him feel frustrated again.</p><p>She had told him that she loved him, and he knew it had done something to her, watching him die; he knew it because the same thing had happened to him, and something dark had twisted inside of him for months afterwards even though he knew she was okay. Except Natasha hadn’t been <em>acting</em> like she loved him, had instead reverted back to the aloofness he had come to forget as time passed, and that was perhaps what hurt the most. That she <em>had</em>.</p><p>“Why won’t you let me just look after you?” he asked in exasperation. “You’re hurt, and it isn’t weak or stupid to accept help when you need it. You can barely stand, Natasha.”</p><p>“I don’t need you to take care of me,” Natasha said. “Just like I didn’t need you to jump in front of a bullet for me.”</p><p>Clint took a deep breath. “I swear to God, you’re the only one making this into a big deal.”</p><p>“I don’t agree with you sacrificing yourself for me,” Natasha snapped. “I’m allowed to be annoyed at you for that.”</p><p>“That’s fine,” he said slowly. “But you don’t get to be a bitch about it. You can't just run off because you feel guilty or whatever.”</p><p>“So I’m a bitch now?” Natasha asked, eyebrow raised in question. She stood and gripped the chair to steady herself and he reminded himself that he was supposed to be angry with her right now. “I’m a bitch for caring that my partner almost <em>died</em> by a bullet meant for me?”</p><p>“Don’t twist this,” Clint spat, standing too. “Can you not just fucking see that this is what happens when you love someone? You <em>want </em>to make sure they’re okay. You <em>want </em>to jump in front of the bullet because it’s better than the alternative.”</p><p>“It’s stupid,” Natasha growled. “It’s reckless and you’re an idiot for letting your emotions dictate your next move.”</p><p>“Well I’m fucking <em>sorry</em> that I have real emotions and not whatever was stuffed into you.” Clint couldn’t think, couldn’t see around the red-hot anger that was swirling through his veins. He knocked the first aid kit off the table and clenched his hands into fists, regretting the words but unable to take them back now.</p><p>“You should have pulled the trigger,” Natasha said. “You should have pulled it and then you would never have had to deal with this mess.”</p><p>“Maybe I should have,” he said lowly. “Would have saved me the headache, that’s for sure.”</p><p>“Do it then,” Natasha said, and before he could react she was holding a gun out to him, eyes steely and expression frozen in fury. “Don’t be a coward. Just do what you came to do.”</p><p>The sight of the weapon knocked some of the fight out of him. “I’m not going to shoot you, Natasha. If you really think that I could do that now, after everything we’ve been through, then you don’t know me at all.”</p><p>“Yea, well, you don’t know me either,” she said. She unloaded the gun and threw it all behind her, marching herself right up to him so that they were standing toe to toe. “They didn’t stuff anything into me. I learnt it all from you.”</p><p>The admission knocked the air out of his lungs and for a moment he couldn’t tear his eyes from her gaze, couldn’t stop staring at the pain he saw that he knew was mirrored on his own face. He wanted to ask her how they had really gotten here, but he knew that it didn’t matter anymore. Maybe they had always been destined for this ending. If he had known, he might have held her for a little longer last time.  </p><p>“Clearly you didn’t understand the part about love,” Clint muttered. “Not sure you ever will.”</p><p>The words tasted like acid, burned right down into his heart and tore through the muscle like it was made of nothing. He wanted to tell her he didn’t really mean it, but maybe a part of him did, to have said it in the first place. He was hurt beyond the pain of any physical injury, because he loved her so much it felt like a bruise and it was Christmas Eve and he was supposed to have her, now. He was supposed to get to wake her up in the morning with a kiss and a present.</p><p>“Fuck you,” she whispered. Her features schooled into an impenetrable mask as she pushed past him, shrugging her way into a coat that barely hid the bloody mess he hadn’t finished cleaning. If it weren’t for the slight tremble of her lower lip, he would think that she really didn’t care at all. “I’m done.”</p><p>The slam of the door shook the wall. Clint grabbed the vodka, deciding that there was enough left to at least get suitably tipsy, and flung himself onto the couch to prepare for a phone call with Coulson. He didn’t know what he would say, or if his handler would accept a broken heart as a good enough excuse not to come in for the rest of the month. Hollywood had gotten it right, because there were only two ways the movies went and he was stuck fast in the one outcome he hadn’t hoped for.</p><p>In hindsight, if he had known it was going to be the last time that he saw her for over a year he might have tried a little harder. He might have gone after her, or talked it through with less anger than he felt, or come back the next day, even, and tried again.</p><p>But still: hindsight was a bitch.</p>
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<a name="section0007"><h2>7. 2011</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>yes i know the last chapter was ✨angsty✨ but you didn't really expect me to resolve it sooner than this did you?? anyway i AM sorry for this (even tho i lowkey think it's hilarious ngl) and i fully expect to be absolutely crucified so: here's chapter 7 ❤️</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
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  <p>2011</p>
</blockquote><p> </p><p>Clint was sent to assassinate the Deputy Prime Minister of Belarus on a cold winters day in late December. It didn’t matter that it was Christmas, in the end.</p><p>He hadn’t spoken to Natasha for nearly a year.</p>
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<a name="section0008"><h2>8. 2012</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>this chapter.... oh boy. she got me good. she had me up until midnight writing even when i had to work early the next day (the bags under my eyes are designer just fyi) i could have gone with this for like.,,, ever, but i held back with just under 12k words. i hope this does justice to some things and i hope you guys enjoy it 🥺 i cried so much. im so tired</p><p>warnings: this is 2012 so post-new york stuff, lil bit of mind control issues and also yes there are some sexc times. and uh, character death is mentioned bc. 2012</p><p>thank you so much for reading!! im going to bed before i pass out ❤️❤️</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
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    <strong>2012</strong>
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</blockquote><p> </p><p>Clint stared at the bloodied cards on the table.</p><p>He could feel Natasha’s eyes on him. He could feel Fury’s eye on him too, which was perhaps the most unsettling part of whatever this was. It was a debriefing, he assumed, or at least the closest thing he would get to a debriefing following the absolute shit show that had been the last however many days, and whilst he knew the basics he didn’t think the rest of it mattered.</p><p>She had told him, softly, sometime between eating shawarma and making it back to base. She spoke like she had at the beginning, as though she wasn’t sure she <em>should </em>be speaking, even though she had to be the one to tell him; just like she had to be the one to bring him back, the one to hold his hand and whisper in his ear like nothing had ever changed between them. But her fingers had shook against his skin, and he didn’t know if it was concern or fear, and he hated that he didn’t know, now. He was <em>supposed </em>to know.</p><p>The news hadn’t sunk in at first. He was so focused on her hands and how close she stood to him, the first time in over a year that they had been in the same room together. Apologies blistered on his lips because he wasn’t sure what he was apologising for anymore, if the destruction he had caused in New York somehow cancelled out the knives he had driven into her back. He was tired of avoiding her in the halls, of hearing from Coulson that she had sleepwalked into his apartment again. Clint was the one she turned to, and it hurt to know that she didn’t feel like she could. He could have tried to fix it.</p><p>And then she had told him. And the world had shrunk to a pinprick again.</p><p>“He’s dead,” Clint said into the silence. “I killed him.”</p><p>“No,” Natasha said sharply. When he looked at her he was surprised to see tears in her eyes. “You didn’t kill anyone.”</p><p>“Don’t lie to me, Nat,” he spat, because at least for now he could still feel anger. He clung to it desperately, like it was the only thing keeping him afloat. She had been that person once. The one to stop him from sinking. “I want to know.”</p><p>“It wasn’t you,” Fury said. “It was Loki. That motherfucker got the drop on all of us.”</p><p>Clint’s lips twitched. “Yea, well. You didn’t have him messing around in your brain. Pulling bits out.”</p><p>Natasha bowed her head, palms resting flat on the table. Her hair was shorter, shorter than he ever remembered seeing it. He knew that she didn’t cut her hair; having the trust to sit in front of someone holding a pair of scissors had quite literally been beaten out of her, even if she let him play with the end of her braid and rub sunscreen on her back. The memories shimmered blue and it stung to know that Loki had seen it all. Not even Coulson had known the whole truth, and now…</p><p>“We got him out,” Natasha said quietly. “We got you back.”</p><p>He didn’t miss the way her voice cracked around the words. Did she believe it? Or did she feel the way he did, like every next step would be his last, like the glass floor would surely crack and give way and he would plummet back into the Hell he had woken from? He thought about asking her, if it had been like this for her too. The last time he had thought that it had been the beginning of the end.</p><p>“How can you trust me?” Clint snapped, pushing his chair away from the table so violently that it hit the wall. “How can you sit there and speak to me like I didn’t kill Coulson? How can you <em>know </em>that he won’t make me kill you, too?”</p><p>Natasha stared at him, eyes wide and face so vulnerable it made his stomach clench. He looked away from her and pushed down the memories that threatened to drag him under, instead focusing on how <em>good </em>it felt to be angry. He was allowed to be angry; angry that it had happened, that he had let his guard down for just long enough for Loki to sneak in and take over. He shouldn’t have even been there. He could be mad about that.</p><p>“If at any moment you start acting like he’s back in control, I’ll put a bullet in you myself,” Fury said steadily. “Until that moment, you better get your head out of your ass and quit feeling sorry for yourself.”</p><p>“You didn’t kill Coulson,” Natasha whispered. It sounded like a prayer, like something he could maybe believe. “<em>Please</em>, Clint.”</p><p>Something heavy settled over his shoulders, and he slumped back into his chair. “M’sorry, Tasha.”</p><p>He watched Fury rest his hand on Natasha’s shoulder, squeezing it gently. She shifted minutely so that her side was pressed against his and Clint ached for the feeling of it, briefly. Loki had made him relive every painful detail from the last two years and now he wasn’t sure he could even remember what it felt like to hold her hand. He knew what it felt like to betray her, though, and it burned like poison through his veins.</p><p>This was more than the two of them now. They had lost the one person who really understood them and they hadn’t had time to grieve before being thrown into a world they had no idea how handle. Clint just wanted the chance to thank Coulson for everything that he had done, even though a simple <em>thank you</em> didn’t seem enough to accurately portray everything he felt. Did Coulson know, in the end, that they loved him like family? Did he know how much they cared for him?</p><p>“It’s okay,” Natasha said eventually. Pulling away from Fury looked like it caused her physical pain and he noted for the first time just how tired she appeared. He hadn’t looked in a mirror lately but imagined his expression mirrored her own. “Just believe me. Please.”</p><p>He almost didn’t hear the soft plea at the end of her sentence. Fury collected up the cards and carefully put them in his pocket, and it felt final in a way that the news of Coulson’s death hadn’t. He was <em>gone</em>. His cards would be gone, and one day his office would be gone, and all they would have left would be a tombstone and memories that faded over time. It wasn’t fair. Coulson wasn’t supposed to be the first one to go.</p><p>“Did he get them signed?” Clint asked, surprising himself. His cleared his throat and tried again. “Did Rogers sign the cards for him?”</p><p>“No,” Fury replied. “He didn’t get the chance.”</p><p>Clint nodded, clenching his jaw. “Right.”</p><p>“I don’t want to see the two of you for the rest of the week,” Fury said. He pointed at Natasha, though his expression was almost soft. “Keep him in line. I trust you on this, Romanoff.”</p><p>“Okay,” Natasha replied. “I’ll check in on Wednesday.”</p><p>Clint didn’t care that they were speaking around him. Now that the anger was gone his body ached and his head pounded and he just wanted to have a shower and scrub the remnants of battle from his body. He stood in unison with Natasha and somehow made his way around the table to follow her out, not really caring where she was going to take him. He didn’t even care that she had been delegated the role of his babysitter. He just wanted to rest.</p><p>“Take care of yourself too, Natasha,” Fury said when they were almost out the door. Clint was close enough to notice the way her shoulder’s hunched in, just a little, as though she were trying to hold herself together. “I want both of Coulson’s best agents back in one piece.”</p><p>They didn’t respond. Natasha opened the door and he followed her out, not looking at anything other than a broken clock on the wall, stuck forever on a time that they couldn’t get back. <em>September 30<sup>th</sup> </em>blinked at him and Clint felt a piece of his being splinter.</p><p> </p><p>It was cold in Coulson’s apartment. Clint hadn’t expected her to take him there, but it made sense when he thought about the agents that now wanted him dead, too. He had a backpack full of things Natasha had apparently picked for him and no idea what he was supposed to do with himself now that the dust had settled. He looked around at the furniture, all the pieces of Coulson that had been left behind and already forgotten in the grand scheme of things.</p><p>“I’ll take the couch,” he said carefully. “You can… I mean, if you want the spare room…”</p><p>Natasha glanced at him, then shrugged one shoulder. “Whatever.”</p><p>“Okay,” he said. “I’ll take the couch.”</p><p>She disappeared down the hall and returned with blankets and pillows, and Clint pretended to ignore the dull spark of electricity that shot up his arm when their hands briefly made contact. Natasha hesitated, and for a brief, brilliant second he thought she might say something else to him, but then she left the room and the only sound he heard from her was the bedroom door closing.</p><p>Making up the couch took his mind off things for five minutes, so he re-made it another few times until he could convince himself it was close enough to dinner to warrant rummaging through the fridge, except it felt wrong; wrong to be eating his food, to be going through his things as though he wasn’t coming back, even if it was true. He opened the cutlery drawer and felt the air leave his lungs in a rush as he noticed the plastic forks amongst the normal ones.</p><p>There was a post-it note stuck to one of the plastic handles: <em>these are terrible for the environment – N :)</em></p><p>He shut the drawer too quickly, too loudly, felt all of the control he had been gripping with both hands slip through his fingers in an instant. He stumbled into the lounge and fell onto the couch, wrapping himself in the blanket and squeezing his eyes shut. He had <em>missed</em> them, the two of them around him, the three of them a team that couldn’t be stopped in the field. He was glad that Natasha had found some kind of solace in Coulson, but it hurt, like it always did, to know that she hadn’t needed him anymore.</p><p>His chest ached with guilt. Guilt about what had happened between them, how easily it had ended and how easily he had given up. Guilt about not being there for Coulson, in the end, for leading danger straight to him and not being able to stop it in time. Guilt because the three of them would never sit on this couch again, would never bicker and order takeout over mission reports and fall asleep still covered in blood. Strike Team Delta ceased to exist the second Loki’s sceptre pierced Coulson’s chest, and he didn’t know what was supposed to come next.</p><p>Clint kept his eyes closed and drifted for the first time in days.</p><p> </p><p>It was dark outside when he woke, though a light in the kitchen illuminated Natasha and Maria as they stood behind the counter cleaning up. He kept his body still and his eyes half-closed, feeling stupid for snooping but not quite ready to face anyone that wasn’t Natasha. Even then, he wasn’t so convinced he wanted to see her, either.</p><p>“How’s he doing anyway?” he heard Maria ask. The concern in her voice made him clench his fists. Maria was like his annoying younger sister, always teasing him and trying to beat him up. She didn’t ask how he was. She didn’t ask how he was <em>like that</em>.</p><p>“Fine,” Natasha replied. “Medical said he wasn’t physically injured.”</p><p>“That’s not what I mean, Nat,” Maria pushed, taking a bowl from her hands to dry. “How’s he <em>doing</em>?”</p><p>He watched Natasha’s shoulders jump towards her ears. “I don’t… I don’t know. He’s angry. We haven’t spoken beyond…”</p><p>Maria put the bowl down and flung the tea towel over her shoulder. Clint couldn’t see the expression on Natasha’s face, but he could see the way her figure hunched over the counter. It would be so easy to get up and cross the room and pull her into his arms, to just forget about the last few days and months and years that had torn them apart, but he stayed where he was and ignored the want that made his heart splinter.</p><p>Maria rested her hand on Natasha’s arm. “Are <em>you</em> okay, Nat?”</p><p>“Yes,” Natasha said, voice cracking on the back of a sob. She pressed her fingers against her eyes and shook her head, and it was almost too much, to see her like that: scared and sad and <em>lonely</em>. “Yes. But I’m not… I don’t think I am. I nearly lost him again.”</p><p>“I know,” Maria soothed. “But you didn’t. You got him back and you got – ”</p><p>“But I didn’t get them both,” Natasha hissed. “I should have tried harder.”</p><p>“You did what you could,” Maria said steadily. “You did more than enough. C’mon, Nat. Coulson knew this job better than anyone. He would have wanted you to go to Clint. It’s why he called.”</p><p>“What if he still hates me?” Natasha whispered. “I don’t want him to hate me.”</p><p>“He won’t,” Maria said. “Go easy on yourself, okay? Do you want me to stay the night?”</p><p>Clint watched Natasha compose herself, watched the way she stood and straightened her back like she didn’t have the weight of the world resting on her shoulders. She smiled softly at Maria and shook her head, her short hair bobbing across her cheeks. He wanted to feel it and remember what it was like to be kissed by her flame.</p><p>“Thank you,” Natasha said eventually. “Dinner was lovely. But you should go home and rest.”</p><p>Maria dropped the tea towel onto the counter and moved towards the door, gathering her bag as she went. “You need to rest too. You can’t help Clint if you don’t help yourself. If either of you need anything, I’m just a phone call away.”</p><p>She leant in and pressed a soft kiss to Natasha’s cheek, then opened the door and stepped out of the apartment. Natasha’s shoulders slumped again and she glanced over at him, forehead crinkled in worry. Clint lay still and watched her eyes, drinking in the sight of them like he could get drunk from it, until she flipped the light switch and he heard her shuffle down the hall again. He stared at the dark ceiling and listened to the traffic outside, wishing it was her breaths instead.</p><p>The next time he woke he could feel her hands on his arms, and the world slammed back into focus a second later. He heaved, though there was nothing to bring up, desperately gasping for air as he fought to get the images out of his head. Natasha pushed her face into his line of sight and put one hand on his cheek, and the warmth of her skin was enough to ground him.</p><p>“Bad dream,” she murmured. “You’re okay.”</p><p>“Bad dream,” he panted, clenching his own hands into fists. Loki had been in there, he could feel the remnants of him tickling his mind into submission. He wanted to scream and run but his legs were frozen beneath him. “Bad dream.”</p><p>“Just a bad dream,” Natasha repeated. “Clint. You’re okay. Come into bed, it’ll be nicer.”</p><p>“No,” he snapped. “No. I want to stay here. It’s not safe for you.”</p><p>Natasha pulled away slightly, giving him space. He wanted nothing more than to curl against her back and let her smooth her hand over his face but he also didn’t want to hurt her, and he couldn’t be sure that he was fully in control anymore. He waited until his heart stopped pounding to look at her properly, now curled in the armchair opposite him like it was the comfiest bed in the world.</p><p>“What are you doing?”</p><p>Natasha rolled her eyes. “Sleeping here.”</p><p>“You can't sleep in an armchair,” Clint said.</p><p>“I’ve slept in worse places,” Natasha replied, burrowing down into the blanket she had apparently brought with her from the bed. “Corn fields in South Dakota come to mind.”</p><p>Clint grinned despite himself. “Yea, that was… something.”</p><p>She gave him a pointed look. “You need to sleep. I’ll be first watch.”</p><p>“We don’t need to…” Clint started, then cut off as she raised an eyebrow. “Is this your way of trying to make me feel better?”</p><p>“Sleep,” Natasha ordered, and he begrudgingly closed his eyes, evening his breath out until he sounded convincing enough to believe.</p><p>He knew she was too tired to stay awake herself. He waited for Natasha’s own breath to steady before he opened his eyes, then lay in the dark listening to her unintelligible mumbling. He had missed the quiet hum of noise that came with spending nights with her, just like he missed every other little thing that he had grown used to over the years. Tomorrow they would wake up to a new world and he wasn’t sure how much of the old him he could afford to bring along.</p><p>He still hadn’t wrapped his head around aliens and Gods and whatever the fuck a Tesseract was, and he didn’t think he would ever really understand the intricacies of the worlds around him. It was strange to think of how quickly things had changed, and the thought of it happening again made his palms sweat. He couldn’t sleep. Not when Loki still had one hand on the wheel. Not when Natasha still trusted him enough to close her eyes and let her guard down, even after everything they had been through.</p><p>“Just hear me out,” Natasha murmured. Her eyes were still closed, her hand pressed up against her cheek. “You and I are a team. Nothing is more important than our friendship.”</p><p>Clint’s heart stuttered as he sat up, squinting in the dim light to make sure she hadn’t woken up, but her features were peaceful and soft. He felt sick, because he had been dying to hear those words from her for <em>months</em> and now it was finally happening; even though she was asleep and wouldn’t remember any of it, he needed to hear it like he needed oxygen, needed to know that she was willing to at least <em>try</em> to be partners again.</p><p>“I know,” he whispered shakily. If she happened to hear him then maybe they could start to fix the mess they had made of themselves. “I feel the same way.”</p><p>Natasha’s forehead knitted together. “Mike Wazowski.”</p><p>The air left Clint’s lungs in a rush, and he slumped back into his pillows. “Right. Monsters Inc. Of course Coulson would show you Monsters Inc.”</p><p>“We have to get Boo’s door,” Natasha mumbled sleepily. “What if he hates me, Phil?”</p><p>“I could never hate you, Tasha,” he said softly. He stretched his hand out towards her, wanting to entwine her fingers with his, but she was too far out of reach. “Please know that I could never hate you.”</p><p>Natasha sighed and shifted on the chair, drawing the blanket tighter around her body. Clint stared at the ceiling again and tried to forget the sound of resignation in her voice. It was easier to close his eyes than it should have been.</p><p> </p><p>They spent the next week finding small, mundane tasks to keep themselves busy, settling into an awkward routine that had them avoiding each other as much as possible in the small apartment. Clint tried to fix Coulson’s squeaky window frames whilst Natasha iced the mysterious ankle injury she wouldn’t tell him about, and come night time they both retreated to their own beds, pointedly ignoring the elephant in the room despite how close it was to crushing them.</p><p>Clint didn’t sleep. He <em>could</em> sleep, but it was easier not to. When he closed his eyes he dreamt of the things that Loki had wanted him to do, the things that he could still do if persuaded. He closed his eyes and saw Natasha’s death, and sometimes he couldn’t quite tell if it <em>was </em>just a dream. The few times he had fallen asleep always ended with Natasha waking him up, her hands soft against his face. It scared him to not be in control and he couldn’t risk it around her. He couldn’t risk hurting her again.</p><p>They hadn’t sent him to therapy yet, and for that he was thankful. Therapy had torn Natasha apart and he had been left to reconstruct the pieces, and he wasn’t ready to go through that on his own. He could barely admit to <em>himself</em> that it was getting harder to see past the darkness that curled around his thoughts, but sometimes he lost hours of the day and couldn’t make sense of what was real. There was a blue tinge to everything he dreamt of and it left his body ice cold.</p><p>Watching the lights through the window was an easy way to take his mind off things. He wanted to do <em>something</em> other than whatever this was, something that made him at least feel like he deserved to be living in Coulson’s apartment instead of him. Their week was just about up and there had been no word from Fury or Natasha about what came next, and being left in the dark didn’t sit well with Clint. It would be so easy to walk out the door and never come back.</p><p>He saw Natasha a second before he heard her. “Can’t sleep either?”</p><p>“He’s dead,” Natasha said. She stood in the middle of the living room, body trembling from something that wasn’t the cold air. “You need to sleep.”</p><p>“I’m okay,” he said automatically, squinting at her. “What’re you doing, Nat?”</p><p>“Nat,” she repeated. “I’m not real.”</p><p>“Oh,” Clint sighed, scrubbing at his eyes. He threw his blanket off and stood carefully, stretching his sore back. The couch didn’t agree with him anymore. “Sleep walking. You still do that?”</p><p>“I don’t want to rule my own country,” Natasha said pointedly. He reached for her arm and she followed him willingly, feet dragging across the floor. “I just want to pass tenth grade.”</p><p>“Princess Diaries? What was Coulson doing to you?” Clint muttered. He pushed open the door to the spare room and took a deep breath, remembering the last time they had been there together under the mistletoe, basking in the warmth that came with new beginnings and secret love. It felt like a lifetime ago, and yet…</p><p>He led her over to the bed and watched her climb in, then pulled the covers up to her chin and tucked them against her side. Natasha’s glassy eyes stared at the ceiling and he thought about brushing his fingers over her cheek to try and wake her. He could imagine Coulson standing where he was now, silently laughing at the nonsense she spoke.</p><p>“I miss him,” Natasha said suddenly. Her lower lip wobbled and her breath stuttered in her chest, and every exhale was like a knife to the heart. “I miss him.”</p><p>“I know,” Clint gasped, feeling blinding, hot tears for the first time since New York. Sadness clawed up his throat and he gasped, too, trying to expel it before he drowned. “God, I miss him too.”</p><p>Through the haze of tears he could see her looking at him, now, her expression still too vacant for him to believe she was awake. “I miss you. I <em>miss you</em>.”</p><p>“I miss you too,” Clint whispered. His last ounce of self-control crumbled under the weight of her confession and the first sob broke through his clenched teeth. “Fuck, Tasha. What have we done?”</p><p>“I miss you,” she said again. Her voice was hoarse and the sound of it had him throwing caution to the wind; he pulled the covers back and crawled in beside her, heart rattling in his chest as he cried for all they had lost. “Oh.”</p><p>Natasha woke at the contact but didn’t pull away like he expected. Instead, she cradled his head to her chest, over her heart, and he listened to the steady rhythm as he fought for a breath of his own. He clutched at her shirt and felt her fingers ghost over the crown of his head until she could rub the short hairs at the nape of his neck.</p><p>“It’s okay,” she soothed. “It was a bad dream.”</p><p>She was obviously confused, but Clint couldn’t find the words to explain what had just happened. “It’s not a dream. It’s real. I’m broken, Nat.”</p><p>“You’re not –“ she started to say, but he cut her off, suddenly unable to stop talking now that he had started.</p><p>“I keep losing time. Hours and hours and Loki is still in there, he still has <em>control</em>. I can't hurt you. I can't lose you too. You can’t walk away this time. I need you. I keep losing time.”</p><p>“I’m not going anywhere,” Natasha assured him. “I’m right here. We’ll be okay, Clint. You have to sleep.”</p><p>“I can’t,” he moaned, even as his heavy eyes blissfully closed. Her small body was warm against his, familiar in a way that he had almost forgotten. “I’m scared.”</p><p>“So am I,” she admitted. “But we’re together. That’s not so bad, right?”</p><p>“Right,” Clint whispered. “Stay, please.”</p><p>“I’ll stay,” Natasha promised, and with her breath on his face and her fingers in his hair, he finally fell asleep.</p><p> </p><p>The next morning Natasha was gone. He hadn’t really expected her to be there when he woke up, but her side of the bed was cold and he couldn’t help but wonder if she had stayed at all throughout the night. He lay in the cool room for a while, basking in how refreshing it felt to have a full nights rest. His body still ached from the battle, though not as acutely as it had yesterday. He could still feel the ghost of Natasha’s fingers on his face.</p><p>He found her in the living room, curled on the couch with her phone sandwiched between her ear and shoulder. He went into the kitchen to make himself some coffee and tried not to eavesdrop on whatever conversation she was having, feeling once again like he was intruding on her space; even though they had begun to co-exist in their own, disjointed way, Natasha was coping much better than he was and he didn’t want to ruin that for her.</p><p>“We’re not coming back,” Natasha said, watching him move around the kitchen. She brushed her damp hair out of her face, then rolled her eyes. “How much vacation time do we have then?”</p><p>Clint frowned at the coffee pot. Their week was up, and even though he didn’t exactly feel ready to go back to SHIELD, it might be exactly the type of distraction he needed. And he <em>did </em>want to go back and feel useful again, but there was a small part of him that didn’t trust himself around a weapon yet.</p><p>“We’re not coming,” she repeated. “Yes. This is me requesting leave. I won't ask for it, Nick. This is… No. We need time.”</p><p>He poured himself two cups of coffee and carried them with him into the living room. Natasha smiled at him tightly and shifted slightly on the couch so he could sit next to her. He hesitated, torn between doing what he wanted and doing what he thought he needed to. He sat in the armchair and ignored the confusion that passed over her features. He didn’t know how to tell her that he was worried about her safety.</p><p>“Months,” Natasha said into the phone. “I know what this is like. It’s going to take more time than anyone can – ”</p><p>“I’m right here,” he said, sipping at his first coffee and raising an eyebrow. “You want me to talk to Fury?”</p><p>Natasha’s eyes were tired. “I’ve got to go. We’ll see you at the funeral.”</p><p>She hung up and Clint felt his throat close over at her words, unable to draw a full breath of air at the thought of having to go to Coulson’s funeral. He didn’t want to imagine a gravestone being the place they had to go to in order to visit their friend. Coulson wouldn’t want anything fancy, and Natasha would look nice in a black dress, and Fury might even say something; something about how loyal Coulson was, or how kind he was, or how he was the one person you could turn to when the world was falling down around your feet.</p><p>“Sorry,” Natasha said softly, breaking him from his train of thought. “I didn’t think it was time for us to go back yet.”</p><p>Clint wanted to tell her that it should have been his choice, too, but he lost the words at the look on her face. “Us, huh? Not like you to take a break, Romanoff.”</p><p>Natasha shrugged. “I’m not leaving you on your own.”</p><p>“No one likes a babysitting gig,” Clint said. “I’m a big boy. I can take care of myself.”</p><p>“I’m worried,” Natasha said, eyes widening as though she had surprised herself, too, by saying it. “I don’t <em>want</em> to leave you alone.”</p><p>Clint swallowed the lump in his throat. “I guess that’s okay then. I don’t… I don’t know if I want to be alone.”</p><p>Natasha’s lips quirked slightly before she turned her attention back to the book open in her lap. Clint squinted at the illustrations, recognising the worn copy of The Velveteen Rabbit that he had given her for her first Christmas. He knew she read it when she needed comfort; she had flipped through the pages more times than he could count that first year, back when the world was still a giant uncertainty to her.</p><p>She looked good. The last time he had seen her properly she had been bleeding and full of rage, just as hurt as he was but unable to understand why. Now, she seemed well, albeit a little sad, though at least he knew why this time. She suited short hair. She suited the pyjama pants she hadn’t changed out of yet, the hoodie that he instantly recognised as his own. She was comfortable here, with him. It was almost enough to convince him that he would be okay, too.</p><p>“So, you and Maria huh?” he asked eventually.</p><p>Natasha paused in her reading to glance at him from behind her hair. “Yes?”</p><p>“That was a <em>thing</em> I saw in the kitchen the other day, right?”</p><p>“Yes,” Natasha confirmed without asking how he had seen it. “We broke up, remember?”</p><p>“Oh, yea,” Clint backtracked, shaking his head. “I know. I'm happy for you. How long?”</p><p>She pursed her lips, then shuffled down on the couch and rested the book against her knees. “It was just casual.”</p><p>“Casual,” Clint repeated. “Good for you.”</p><p>Natasha snorted. “You sound like Phil. We were just having some fun.”</p><p>“I bet,” he teased, and almost choked on his coffee at the withering glare she sent him. “C’mon now. I’ve seen you naked. Nothing is off limits.”</p><p>“I like Maria,” Natasha admitted, cheeks slightly pink. “But it was never going to be anything other than sex. It ended months ago.”</p><p>“Like I said, I’m happy for you, Nat,” Clint said softly. “Even if it was just some fun.”</p><p>Natasha turned the page, keeping her eyes focused on the words in front of her. “You and Bobbi, huh?”</p><p>Clint laughed for the first time all week, holding his sides as they burned from the force of it. It wasn’t even that funny, except that it was, because the two of them had almost torn each other limb from limb and now they could talk about their sex lives with other people and it was just <em>fine</em>. It felt like old times. It felt like exactly what he needed.</p><p>Natasha fought until the very last second but she couldn’t contain her own giggles, and before long all they could do was laugh, and it felt ridiculously childlike. He doubled over in the armchair, forgetting for a second the black clouds that plagued his mind, and just enjoyed being happy in her presence. Yet despite the way her laughter lit up his world, when they eventually stopped he only felt numb, and he knew, in his heart, that it would take more than whatever she had planned to help him.</p><p> </p><p>“What are we doing for Christmas this year?”</p><p>He could feel Natasha’s gaze on him, but he didn’t look away from the window. He could only tell it was December from the snow outside and the new fairy lights that had been strung along the balcony opposite their building. Natasha had ripped all of the calendars in Coulson’s apartment down shortly after his first real hallucination post-New York and eventually he had just stopped asking. It was easier to stop him thinking he was losing time if there was nothing to <em>track</em> the time.</p><p>“I’m not sure,” she said eventually. “Stark invited us to his party.”</p><p>Clint flinched. “Stark invited you.”</p><p>“He knows that we come together,” Natasha said pointedly. “If he invites me, he invites you.”</p><p>Clint didn’t respond, instead focusing again on the lights on the balcony. The last three months had been far harder than he had ever expected, and even now he wasn’t convinced that he would ever make a good agent again. It was easy to turn off, to let the numbing feeling spread from his mind across his body until he couldn’t feel a thing, just his own heart pounding in his chest. Natasha tried to help but he was only dragging her down with him, and no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t convince her to leave.</p><p>It had started after Coulson’s funeral and he hadn’t been able to shake it. He <em>wanted </em>to shake it; he wanted to go back to normal, to stop doubting everything he did and start living his life again. He hated that Loki still had so much control over his life, that everyone else had been able to move on and he was stuck in a reality that no longer existed. Coulson would have kicked his ass by now, and he knew Natasha was days away from doing it herself.  He wished she would. It would be easier for both of them.</p><p>“I thought we could walk to the deli for lunch,” Natasha tried. “They have bagels. I think I’d like to try one.”</p><p>Clint didn’t miss the hesitation in her voice, but the impression it might have left once didn’t stick this time. “Not hungry.”</p><p>She stared at him for a long, tense minute. Then, she marched down the hall and into the spare room, slamming the door behind her. He considered turning the TV on for something to do, then changed his mind when he remembered the footage of New York that was still being circulated, even now. Fighting alongside Natasha was the last time he had felt like himself.</p><p>“Grab your things,” Natasha snapped, appearing in the living room as though from thin air. She had her duffel bag slung over her shoulder and a scowl on her face that would bring weaker men to their knees. “We’re leaving.”</p><p>“What?” he asked. “Are we finally going back to work?”</p><p>“No,” she said. When he didn’t immediately move she began gathering his things herself, shoving them haphazardly into his bag. “We need to get out of this apartment.”</p><p>He didn’t really want to leave, because leaving meant leaving Coulson, and that wasn’t something he had considered. He knew, logically, that they couldn’t live in the apartment forever; they both had their own lives, even if they hadn’t necessarily been living them for a while, and he had to admit that it made him sad to see their friend’s things sitting untouched on his shelves. The bloodied Captain America cards had been restored and Natasha had mounted them on the mantle, but other than that they had left the majority of his things alone.</p><p>He knew that they wouldn’t be coming back to the apartment. He could sense it in the way that Natasha moved, tearing through the small space and grabbing whatever her hands landed on. He was thankful to have her, though every time he tried to tell her the words dried up in his throat. He thought she knew, anyway, by the way she cupped his cheek in the palm of her hand when he woke from another nightmare. She had always understood him, just like he had always understood her, and he loved her for it.</p><p>And he did love her, still, despite everything. He loved her still <em>because </em>of everything, and it shouldn’t have taken a God and Coulson’s death to show him that. Maybe they had needed the push to bring them back together, even though the push felt more like a drop-kick from the universe. They had had their time apart, had grown apart and moved on from each other, and yet it had only proven to him how much he couldn’t live without her. He didn’t <em>want </em>to live without her. He wanted to bask in her warmth for the rest of his life.</p><p>It was more than enough to get him to stand up and help her. The relief on Natasha’s face made guilt caress his insides but he pushed on, cleaning up the couch that he had called home for three months. If Loki was still in his head today then he couldn’t feel him. All he could feel was Natasha’s hand in his, leading him into something greater than what they had created for themselves.</p><p>He let Natasha drive and spent most of the trip sleeping with his head against the window. They had barely spoken but he didn’t think they needed to. She bought him three hotdogs at the gas station and he ate each one like it was dipped in gold. She twirled ramen around her fingers because the plastic fork was <em>too small, Barton</em>, and when she reached for his hand later on he pressed his palm against hers and felt a small part of him return home.</p><p> </p><p>The farm was bathed in darkness by the time they arrived. Clint jumped when the motor stopped, waking up with much less panic than he usually did to find Natasha already disabling the alarm. He took his bag from the car and trudged through the snow after her, stamping his boots on the mat while she worked on lighting the fire.</p><p>“Been a while,” he said, looking around. “Didn’t know you knew how to get here, actually.”</p><p>“I remembered,” Natasha said easily. “Here’s a fun new fact from psych: I have a photographic memory.”</p><p>“That explains a lot,” Clint muttered, rubbing a hand over his face. Something about being in his own home made him feel less anxious, and his shoulders relaxed marginally as he moved towards the stairs. “Gonna put my stuff down, but then I might make cocoa?”</p><p>“Okay,” Natasha agreed. She joined him on the staircase, but swung left towards the room she had used last time instead of following him. “I’m going to have a shower.”</p><p>“Least you didn’t jump out of the car this time,” he teased, and Natasha poked her tongue out at him.</p><p>“Don’t pick on me. I was emotionally unstable.”</p><p>“You got the unstable bit right,” he said, then half-heartedly dodged the punch she threw at his arm. “Go shower. I’ll have the cocoa ready.”</p><p>The fireplace was a mess, but she had done a good enough job of starting a small fire that would at least warm them up a little. Clint moved around the kitchen automatically, adding a dash of vodka to each mug before he took them into the living room. Being at the farm was like a breath of fresh air, both figuratively and literally. He just hoped that it would clear his head and make him feel normal again.</p><p>When Natasha emerged her hair was wet and dripping onto her shoulders. She accepted her cocoa and sat right beside him, thigh pressed solidly against his. He carefully wrapped an arm around her shoulder and she sighed, leaning her head against his chest as they watched the flames flickering weakly.</p><p>“I needed that,” she admitted after a beat. “I was getting better, actually. Sometimes I would ask Phil to hold my hand and it would be enough.”</p><p>“Until it wasn’t, right?” Clint asked softly. He hated that he hadn’t been brave enough to touch her for weeks. He had never thought that she might be suffering, because like most things with Natasha, he never knew until it was too late. “I missed your hugs.”</p><p>“I missed yours,” she murmured. “I really ruined us, didn’t I?”</p><p>“No,” he said immediately. “No, Nat. We both… We were both scared and we both reacted badly.”</p><p>“It was the one thing I feared most,” she said. “Nothing good ever lasts.”</p><p>Her words echoed in his head from what felt like a lifetime ago. He had told her that it would be okay and neither of them had come out the other side unscathed, and looking at it now he realised it was the first time he had lied to her. Inadvertently, but it was still a lie nonetheless. The thought of it made him want to cry, because she had believed him back then and he hadn’t kept his word.</p><p>Still, he believed in second chances. “Some things are worth the risk.”</p><p>Natasha twisted her head up to look at him. “I didn’t forget that.”</p><p>“Good,” Clint whispered. “Neither did I.”</p><p>Natasha’s gaze fixed firmly on his lips, and it would be so, <em>so</em>, easy to lean down and kiss her. it was all he wanted, to have her back and to settle into a life that was new and safe with her. He wanted to kiss her and show her that he loved her, and he hoped to Hell that she still loved him too; hoped that she wanted to try again and bridge the wedge they had driven between each other.</p><p>But he couldn’t do it yet. Not when he didn’t trust his own mind. He took a sip of his cocoa and rubbed her shoulder, and she settled back against him, letting the warmth from the fire and his body lull her to sleep. He stayed awake, like he usually did, eyes burning and heart aching. He was home, but it felt like he only had one foot in the door.</p><p> </p><p>Clint had planned on fixing the broken porch step the next day, but he found himself wandering aimlessly around the yard instead, unable to focus on a task for long. Natasha weeded the garden whilst he worried about whatever the fuck was wrong with his brain, and when it didn’t look like he would stop pacing anytime soon she stood and brushed her hands off on her pants.</p><p>“You can go inside if you want,” she called to him. “I’ll be another minute.”</p><p>“I don’t understand why it can't just be <em>easy</em>,” he snapped, feeling the familiar pull in his chest that warned him he was seconds away from freaking out. “It’s so <em>frustrating</em>. It’s so fucking weak and – ”</p><p>“It’s not,” Natasha argued, crossing the yard to stand beside him. “Clint, it’s a normal reaction.”</p><p>“Like you would know! Nothing about your reactions to things are normal.” He gasped like he was just coming back into his body and fought to take the words back, trying to pull them out of the air between them. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, God…”</p><p>Natasha folded her arms over her chest. “Have you still got your hiking boots?”</p><p>“What?” Clint asked, head spinning. He didn’t know if he was going to be sick. “What do you mean?”</p><p>“Put your boots on,” Natasha said. “We’re going hiking.”</p><p>Clint blinked at her, but her expression remained stoic, and she didn’t move until he went inside to get changed. His hands shook as he pulled his boots on, and he wasn’t sure exactly what had happened or how Natasha had snapped him out of it so quickly this time, but he wasn’t about to question it. He met her outside and ignored the flip of his stomach when he noticed the tiny bun she had wrangled her hair into.</p><p>“Where are we going?” he asked warily as they set off down the driveway.</p><p>“Hiking,” she replied cryptically. “You need to trust me, Clint.”</p><p>“I do trust you,” he replied easily. “You’re the only person I trust now.”</p><p>“Good,” she said softly. “That’s all you need to worry about.”</p><p>Natasha was ruthless in her climb, not stopping once for a break on the way up the mountain. Clint wasn’t exactly sure what her endgame was but he followed her all the same, felt sweat drip down his chest and temples in tandem with her steps. The snow was deep the closer they came to the summit, and when they finally reached the top and could look out at the farm and surrounding fields Clint took his first full breath of air since September.</p><p>His legs shook and his lungs burned and Natasha looked radiant, her cheeks flushed and her hair stuck to the side of her face. He wanted to sweep her up into his arms, suddenly, feel the delighted laugh it would surely cause reverberate in his own chest. He bent over and squeezed his eyes shut instead, suddenly realising why she had brought him here.</p><p>“Scream,” she told him. “Just let it all out.”</p><p>He could remember telling her to do the same thing all those years ago, watching the fear on her face give way to relief as she screamed as though her life had depended on it. He had been proud, back then; proud that she had trusted him enough to follow her, proud that she had poured her heart out into the Iowan sky and let it be her secret keeper. But he couldn’t find it in himself to do it, now. He opened his eyes, in case it changed anything.</p><p>“I miss him!” Natasha suddenly screamed, her voice octaves higher than it usually was. He listened as the wind swept her confession up and carried it across the open space in front of them until it was just a whisper. “I miss him. I miss <em>us</em>. I’m scared of what comes next. I’m scared of losing him too.”</p><p>“I’m weak,” he croaked, then felt hot tears spill over his cheeks and freeze before they hit the ground. “I’m weak and I killed my friend. I killed my friend!”</p><p>His voice echoed through the mountains like it was taunting him, but now that he had started he couldn’t stop. He felt something swell in his chest, an emotion so intense it left him gasping even as the words tumbled out unbidden.  </p><p>“It should have been me! It should have been me and Coulson should still be here, but it’s not and I'm weak because I can't stop it. Why can't I stop it? Loki still has control and I just want it to <em>stop</em>! I’m scared that I’ll hurt her and then I’ll never forgive myself, because I need her, I <em>need</em> her, God I just… I’m not in control. I’m broken!”</p><p>“No,” Natasha shouted, rounding on him. “You’re not broken. I trust you, Clint. It’s not weak – ”</p><p>“Loki is still in there!” he cried, pointing at his head. They were so close that their toes were touching, snow swirling between the small space left between their bodies. They were yelling in each other’s faces but he couldn’t focus on that now, not when he had to make her <em>see</em>. “He still has control and it’s not safe for you, Nat. He’s in me and I can't get him out.”</p><p>“Do you think I would bring you here if I had even the slightest doubt that he was still in your head?” Natasha screamed back at him. “I love you but I’m not fucking stupid, Clint.”</p><p>“What?” he whispered, convinced that he hadn’t heard her properly. He could see the way her teeth chattered and realised, albeit slowly, that the weather had worsened significantly since they had left the farm. “What?”</p><p>“I love you,” Natasha choked, bringing a hand to press against her mouth and hold back the sob he could see building in her chest. Silvery tear tracks froze to her pink cheeks and he reached for her blindly, pulling her flush against his chest. “Please, Clint. Please believe me.”</p><p>“I do,” he said into her hair. “God, Tasha. I love – ”</p><p>She cut him off by pressing her frozen lips to his, kissing him like it was the first time all over again and they were about to be caught out in the act. He cupped her cheek, deepening the kiss until he couldn’t focus on anything other than the feeling of <em>her</em>, the feeling he had so desperately missed for so long. He kissed her until he felt the familiar tickle in his mind, and then he pulled away, brushing his thumb over her bottom lip to try and imprint the memory in his bones.</p><p>“I can't hurt you,” he murmured. “He’s still in there and I can't… I can't.”</p><p>Natasha took a step back and folded her arms over chest, tucking her hands under her armpits. “We should go.”</p><p>He exhaled shakily and nodded, not trusting his voice. Natasha wiped at her eyes and started picking her way down the mountain, and Clint let her get far enough ahead that she wouldn’t hear his tears. He didn’t understand how she could still trust him when he couldn’t even trust himself, and everything turned to static in his head as he blindly followed the path she had made. Getting home was more muscle memory than anything; everything else faded to white noise.</p><p>It was dark by the time they reached the farm. Instead of going inside and changing out of her wet clothes, Natasha waited for him on the porch, holding herself together tightly. He pulled himself up the steps and sat heavily on the top one, stretching his fatigued legs out in front of him. After a moment, she sat beside him, resting her head on his shoulder.</p><p>“What do I have to say?” she asked him.</p><p>“Nothing,” he replied. “You don’t have to say anything you don’t want to.”</p><p>She shrugged. “There’s a lot I <em>could </em>say. I’m just not sure it would make a difference.”</p><p>Clint closed his eyes again and let out a deep breath. His head pounded and, like always, he wasn’t convinced that Loki wasn’t pulling some of the strings. The feeling of it, of losing control over his body, lingered in every move he made. He never wanted to feel that way again, and yet he had steadily been letting the dark thoughts overwhelm him until it was all he <em>could </em>feel.</p><p>“I’ve had people play with my head, too,” she said slowly. “I know what it’s like to not be in control. It took years to get over that, and the only reason I could was because I let you help me. I realised it wasn’t… weak, to let someone in.”</p><p>“But I might hurt you,” he said. “What if I lose control and try to hurt you again? I could have killed you on the Helicarrier, Nat.”</p><p>“You didn’t,” she assured. “There was still a part of you that didn’t want to do it, Clint. God, how many times do you think I worried about killing you? The first week here, at the farm, was the hardest week of my life.”</p><p>“I thought,” he started, then struggled to know how to express what he wanted to say. “I thought you just didn’t know how to live normally.”</p><p>Natasha let out a breath that almost sounded like a laugh. “I didn’t. I still don’t. What’s normal, anyway? It can be whatever we want it to be.”</p><p>“How can you sit here with me after everything I said?” he asked. The question had been in his mind for months, ever since he had woken up on the Helicarrier to see her sitting beside him. “How can you even look at me, Tasha, let alone <em>love </em>me?”</p><p>“I forgave you,” she said, like it was the easiest thing in the world. “Coulson taught me that forgiveness is the most powerful thing we can do for each other. Besides, I didn’t exactly treat you very well either.”</p><p>Clint rubbed his tired eyes. “What I said wasn’t true, but I just… I was so hurt. I wanted you to feel how hurt I was.”</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Natasha said firmly, turning his head towards her so that he could look into her eyes. “I’m sorry that I didn’t trust us enough to know we could make it work. I was convinced that I would lose you if I loved you and… I needed to prove to myself that I was still capable on my own.”</p><p>“It’s okay,” he said gently. “I’m sorry that I said those things. I think I understand now, why it happened the way that it did. But it shouldn’t have taken Loki for me to realise how important it is for you to have control.”</p><p>“You can't know everything,” Natasha murmured. “As long as you know the truth.”</p><p>“Truth is a matter of circumstance,” Clint muttered, then snorted. “Huh. Think I heard you say that once.”</p><p>“The truth is just the truth with you,” Natasha replied. “It’s why you’re so good.”</p><p>“You’ll make my head get big,” he teased, knocking his shoulder against hers. “We should probably get changed.”</p><p>“You take the first shower,” Natasha said, and a small part of him was disappointed that she hadn’t suggested they share. “I’ll make dinner.”</p><p>“There’s gotta be soup in the cupboard,” Clint suggested quickly, remembering too well the salad she had tried to pass as food when they were undercover. “Could just heat that up.”</p><p>Natasha’s lips twitched. “Okay. Soup it is.”</p><p>Clint went straight to the bathroom, aware of how cold his body was and unwilling to let it remind him of Loki for too long. He switched the shower on and stood under the hot spray until his skin turned pink. A minute later he was out, wary of saving water for Natasha and unable to ignore the hunger cramps in his stomach any longer.</p><p>Natasha wasn’t in the kitchen when he came down in fresh clothes. He paused, noticing the empty pot on the stove that hadn’t been there earlier. He wandered into the living room but she wasn’t there either, so he went upstairs to check the bedroom and felt his stomach plummet when he didn’t find her. He had only been gone for two minutes and Natasha had somehow completely <em>disappeared</em>, and he didn’t know what had happened to make her leave.</p><p>He took the stairs down two at a time, then noticed that the door to the basement was ajar. Heart in his throat, he made his way down, genuinely surprised to actually find her sitting on an old table instead of the chairs that were around it. She looked up as she heard him enter and smiled softly, the kind of smile that made him weak in the knees.</p><p>“What’re you doing?” he asked, hoisting himself up onto the table beside her. He noticed the needle in her hand and frowned, concern lacing his features. “Tash?”</p><p>“Piercing my ear,” she hummed, brushing her hair aside to show him the ear in question. There was a small dot at the top of the cartilage, though it didn’t look like it was in the right place. “Helps me think.”</p><p>He noticed for the first time the three studs she wore on her left ear. “Thought you only had the one?”</p><p>“I did those after our fight,” Natasha said. “I wanted to do one for Coulson, too. It’s silly – ”</p><p>“No,” Clint interrupted. “It’s not silly at all.”</p><p>Natasha’s hands shook as she carefully held the needle out to him. “Could you?”</p><p>“Never pierced an ear before,” he muttered. “Guess I can give it a go.”</p><p>“It’s not so bad,” Natasha breathed. “I trust you.”</p><p>Clint rubbed at the dot she had drawn until it was gone, then lined up the needle and took his own deep breath. It was scary, to be so close to her with something he could easily turn into a weapon, but she said she trusted him and for the first time in a long time, he found himself believing her.</p><p>“Want me to count down?” he asked.</p><p>“I just want to feel something,” Natasha whispered. She rubbed a hand over her eyes and Clint was startled to realise she was crying again, her body trembling in the damp air. “You showed me things I can't… I can't <em>see </em>with other people. And I haven’t felt anything for so long, Clint. I just want to feel.”</p><p>“It’s okay,” he said, putting the needle down and wrapping his arms around her. She crawled into his lap and he held her tightly, held her like she was the most precious thing he had ever laid his hands on. “I want to feel too. I want you. I want you.”</p><p>He tilted Natasha’s chin up and kissed her slowly, sweetly, so differently from before on the mountain. He had missed her, more than he had ever missed anyone in his life. He held his hand against the back of her neck and kissed her like the world was ending, and he loved her; he loved her fiercely, more than Loki would ever understand, and it spread throughout his chest, all the way down to his toes until he thought he might burst from it.</p><p>And it felt like <em>home</em>.</p><p> </p><p>Christmas Eve brought with it a fresh layer of snow and the excuse to stay in bed for half the morning. Natasha lay beside him, stroking her thumb over the scar on his side and watching him with red-rimmed eyes. He trailed his hand up and down her spine and smiled softly, fingers brushing against the bottom of her short hair. She let her head fall back against his arm and sighed, the sound echoing in the quiet room.</p><p>He had pierced her ear sometime around 3am, though the exact time had been lost as they stumbled up the stairs and collapsed in his bed. The basement had seen more tears from the two of them than Clint had probably cried in his lifetime, though it had been exactly what they needed, in the end. They had cried so much that by the time they even reached the bed all they could was stare at each other, safe in the knowledge that their love had survived years of heartache and pain.</p><p>Clint knew that there was only one way to go from here, and that was forward. New York still lingered, and he supposed that it always would, but he could see his future again and it wasn’t so blue now. Natasha had brought colour back into his world and he was drunk from it, revelling in everything he had missed.</p><p>“We need a Christmas tree,” Natasha said. “It’s Christmas tomorrow.”</p><p>“Christmas didn’t mean anything without you,” he told her. “I didn’t celebrate it. Every time I looked at a tree I felt like calling you.”</p><p>“Coulson gave me a toy,” Natasha laughed. “It has a happy face on the outside and an angry one on the inside, and you just flip it inside out depending on what you’re feeling.”</p><p>Clint blinked at her. “He didn’t.”</p><p>“He told me to show it to you,” she murmured. “I think it was a hint.”</p><p>“Obviously,” Clint laughed, then moved his hand from her back to stretch his arms out over his head. “We need a Christmas tree.”</p><p>“C’mon,” Natasha said, jumping out of bed with far more energy than Clint himself had. She wiggled her fingers at him until he grasped her hand and let himself be pulled up. “I want you to test every single one.”</p><p>“Really?” Clint groaned, though he couldn’t help but smile at the excitement on her face.</p><p>“Yes,” she said, pulling him after her towards the kitchen. “I don’t have to ask anymore.”</p><p>“Not with me,” he agreed. He tugged her back into his chest and swallowed her giggle with a kiss. “If I cook pancakes will you at least test one tree?”</p><p>Natasha poked her tongue out at him. “You’re an asshole.”</p><p>Pancakes turned into a food fight that ended with Clint licking cream from Natasha’s clavicle, and eventually they bundled themselves into the truck and made the trip to the Christmas tree farm. Natasha sucked on a strawberry lollypop and held his hand the entire drive, and then she led him around the farm until they had picked a tree that looked like it might just make it through the night. She stretched her legs out on the dash on the way home and sang along to Britney Spears, and it was ridiculous enough that he never wanted to go back.</p><p>Fury was waiting for them, as well as the Avengers now, apparently, but Clint wanted just a few more days like this: full of laughter and silliness and everything they had cried and bled for. It meant something, to spend time with Natasha like this. It meant something to see how far they had come from the first time they had stayed at the farm, and it meant something to know how much further they were going to go. For now, though, it was just the two of them, and it was more than enough.</p><p>They set the tree up in the living room and decorated it with all of Clint’s old decorations, replacing the angel on the top with the paper one Natasha had made for Coulson’s tree. He hadn’t known that Coulson had kept it and it made his throat tight, to see it on top of their new tree. Natasha sat watching the twinkling lights for so long that he had to remind her to come to bed.</p><p>In the dim light of the moon, with Natasha curled against his side, Clint finally asked the one question that had plagued his thoughts for years. “Why did you jump, the first time I brought you here?”</p><p>“Hmm?” Natasha hummed, frowning.</p><p>“You kept jumping out of the car,” Clint elaborated. “Why?”</p><p>“To see what you would do,” she said softly.</p><p>He thought back to the drive and remembered how worried he had been; worried that he had made the wrong choice, or that he was never going to be able to help her. Natasha had seemed so small, back then, curled into the seat like she couldn’t stand the thought of being that close to him. It was hard to imagine her like that now, not when he knew her so full of life.</p><p>“I thought you were trying to kill yourself,” Clint said eventually. “I thought… I thought it would be easier if you just asked.”</p><p>“I expected you to get angry and hit me,” she admitted. “I would have known how to deal with that. But you just drove slower, so the next time wouldn’t be as bad. And when you yelled you seemed worried. It was enough to get me to stop.”</p><p>“I was worried,” he said. “Worried I would fuck everything up and they would send you back. Didn’t think we’d get this far.”</p><p>“I’m glad we got this far,” Natasha whispered. She leant up and kissed the corner of his mouth, then captured his lips in a slow, sensual kiss. She bit his lower lip as she pulled away and he felt every nerve in his body ignite.</p><p>“Me too,” he said just as softly. He trailed his fingers along the curve of her hip, under her shirt and over the taut skin of her stomach. The muscles jumped and he felt her thighs involuntarily clench as he moved his hand lower, dipping into the front of her pyjama pants. “There’s a lot of things I’m glad for.”</p><p>“Oh yea?” Natasha breathed, voice shaking as she tried to gain some friction with his hand. He teased her, moving slowly, rolling them over so he could start pressing hot kisses down her neck. “Oh, <em>god</em>.”</p><p>“Clint’s fine,” he joked, wincing as she kneed him half-heartedly in the stomach. “Hey, I’ll move my -”</p><p>“Don’t you dare,” Natasha moaned. She pulled her arms through her shirt and tossed it aside, immediately moving onto her bra. “If you stop I’ll kill you.”</p><p>“Okay,” Clint said, distracted by her creamy skin in front of him. His eyes widened when he saw the jagged scar that stretched across her breast and under her arm, and it shocked him enough that he stopped moving his hand. “I did a terrible job.”</p><p>“I ripped the stitches out after I ran away,” Natasha said breathlessly. “Kiss it better?”</p><p>Clint didn’t need to be asked twice, bringing his lips down to delicately kiss across the scarred flesh. It wasn’t enough for Natasha, because she whined in the back of her throat until he really put his mouth on her, and then it was only a matter of seconds before she was crying out his name. Her hands yanked at his shirt and he helped her remove the last of their clothes without pulling his lips from hers, kissing her filthily as she melted back into the mattress.</p><p>“Think it’s better,” Natasha sighed. He hissed as she reached between them and pushed the tip of him inside her, and it took everything in him to not lose his mind then and there. “I want you.”</p><p>“Got me,” Clint moaned, pushing inside her fully and watching the way her pupils dilated. “C’mon, baby.”</p><p>He started slowly, pushing her to the brink and then backing off until she was a puddle beneath him, nails digging into his arms hard enough to bruise. She was beautiful, with her flushed cheeks and kiss-swollen lips, her eyes bright and brilliant as she clung to him. His hips stuttered against hers as he drew closer himself, but he wanted to see her come apart again. He rubbed her clit and felt her orgasm behind his eyelids, and he tumbled after her with her name on his lips like a prayer.</p><p>“Fuck,” Natasha whispered. She smiled at him lazily and ran her pointer finger over his cheekbone. “Hey handsome.”</p><p>“Hey gorgeous,” he murmured. “You know I love you, right?”</p><p>“Yea,” Natasha said. “I love you too, Clint.”</p><p> </p><p>He found her in front of the Christmas tree the next morning, sketching in a notebook he hadn’t seen before. He dropped a kiss on her shoulder and offered her a mug of cocoa, taking a peek at what she was drawing. It didn’t look like much yet, but he could make out the beginning of a body.</p><p>“That me?” he asked, voice still husky from sleep.</p><p>Natasha snorted. “With tits like that? Please.”</p><p>“Huh,” Clint said, tilting his head. “I didn’t see them straight away.”</p><p>“You didn’t have a problem seeing them last night,” Natasha smirked. She pointed her pencil at him and frowned, suddenly serious. “You shouldn’t be looking. This is your late Christmas gift.”</p><p>“I didn’t get you anything,” Clint said sheepishly. “Didn’t really think we’d be here right now.”</p><p>“I didn’t get you anything either, so we’re even,” she replied. “Besides, I think being here is enough.”</p><p>“You getting soft on me Romanoff?” he teased, knocking his shoulder against hers. “You know I have two years’ worth of presents at home for you?”</p><p>“Oh yea? So do I.”</p><p>Clint smiled and sipped his cocoa, watching the blinking lights of the tree. Natasha set her notebook aside and stretched her legs out in front of her, sock clad feet brushing against the lower branches. She had a hickey the size of a dime on her neck and Clint couldn’t remember the last time he had slept so well. Being with Natasha was as easy as breathing.</p><p>“We couldn’t have done anything,” he said suddenly. “We… we couldn’t have been there. I think Coulson would understand that.”</p><p>“He wanted me to bring you back,” Natasha said. “More than anything. I couldn’t let him down.”</p><p>“You didn’t,” Clint assured her. “<em>We</em> didn’t.”</p><p>“He was the best,” Natasha whispered. “I’m lucky to have known him.”</p><p>Clint swallowed the lump in his throat. “Yea. Me too.”</p><p>Natasha leant into him and he automatically wrapped his arm around her shoulders, drawing her closer. If the last few months had taught him anything, it was to keep hold of the ones he loved. He wouldn’t let her go again. He wouldn’t let his demons dictate his life, because it wouldn’t be what Coulson would want. Coulson would want them to love and be happy and fight for good, and Clint finally felt like he could do that again. He had Natasha by his side and a future that stretched out before him, a future worth fighting for because it had been a future Coulson had fought for.</p><p>He missed his friend. He knew the ache would never truly leave, that there would always be a hole in their partnership that couldn’t be filled. He didn’t know if they would have another handler, if there was anyone out there who would be worthy enough of filling such big shoes. They would remember him for his kindness and wit and one day they might have other people to share their stories with. For now, he was content to bask in the warmth that they had created in their small pocket of the universe.</p><p>So when Natasha said, “<em>Phil would be proud of us</em>,” Clint didn’t think about his mistakes. He thought instead of her smile and far they had come since their first Christmas together. Hell had been the journey but it had brought him this, and he knew, deep in his heart, that there were only good things to come.</p><p>“Yea,” Clint said. “I think he would be.”</p>
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<a name="section0009"><h2>9. 2013</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>this is a day late bc im trash and also i had some Breakdown over ✨irl tings✨ so im sorry!! (in other news i may have bought a house so) anyway this is cute and honestly there's no warnings bc it's just. cute. and it wasn't what i originally planned but here we are and i kinda love her 🥺</p><p>thank u for all ur comments!! and thank u to my manager cheree for the inspo ❤️ hope you guys enjoy this chapter!!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
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    <strong>2013</strong>
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</blockquote><p> </p><p>“Why do you need eleven oranges again?”</p><p>Natasha frowned at him, looking as though she might not even dignify his question with an answer. “To juice.”</p><p>“Why don’t you just buy a bottle of juice?” Clint asked carefully.</p><p>She shrugged and moved down the aisle. “I like it fresh.”</p><p>“Right,” Clint drawled, rolling his eyes as he pushed the shopping cart behind her. He watched warily as she added a bag of potatoes to the mix and tried to figure out what exactly she was planning on making for Stark’s Christmas party. “Anything you need me to grab?”</p><p>“No,” she answered. She stopped at the end of the aisle and carefully checked her list, even though he knew that she had it memorised. She was nervous, and it wasn’t an expression he was used to seeing on her face anymore. “I can do it.”</p><p>He left her to it and wandered towards the candy aisle, turning his head so that he could yawn into his shoulder. It was just past midnight and the only other people crazy enough to be grocery shopping were an exhausted mother with her toddler strapped to her chest and a doctor in scrubs, and the quiet Christmas music that played over the speakers made it feel like they were all just floating between time. He added a bag of Cheetos to the cart and smiled at the doctor.</p><p>Shopping in the middle of the night had somehow become the new normal for them; it had started after long missions away, when they came home to an empty fridge and had no choice but to stumble into their local grocery store before the sun rose. There was food in the communal kitchen, but neither of them felt comfortable taking it and Natasha enjoyed shopping with him, though she didn’t necessarily say it. Even when they didn’t have a mission, she would often wake up and ask him to come with her, distracting herself from the nightmares he knew she still had.</p><p>Moving into the Tower had been an easy decision. Stark had extended the invite to them and after avoiding the halls of SHIELD for months following New York they had agreed, moving their meagre belongings onto the separate floors that had been gifted to them. It was awkward sometimes, and they were still trying to find their feet as a team who had been forced together in a time of crisis, but Clint thought that it would have been what Coulson wanted, in the end: for the two of them to find a new family.</p><p>“Almost done,” Natasha said, appearing behind him. She had a unicorn sticker on the back of her hand and a look in her eyes that made Clint swoon. “What are those for?”</p><p>“Breakfast,” Clint shrugged, then reached out and gently grasped her wrist. “Didn’t know you liked unicorns.”</p><p>“The little girl has stickers,” Natasha explained softly. Her cheeks warmed and it was criminal that she could look so sweet wearing his hoodie and old yoga pants. “She insisted.”</p><p>“You’re a sucker,” he teased. “A kid just has to look at you and you’ll give them whatever they want.”</p><p>Natasha smacked his chest. “Shut up. You would too.”</p><p>“Maybe,” Clint conceded. He added two bags of Skittles to the cart and ignored her eye roll. “<em>This</em> is for lunch.”</p><p>“Unbelievable,” Natasha muttered. “Are you ready to go?”</p><p>Clint nodded and they made their way slowly towards the register, taking their time just because they could afford to. Natasha picked up some last-minute Advil and a box of band aids with little flowers on them, and Clint warily watched the salad ingredients scan up, trying to imagine what she needed eggs and bologna for. He told himself that whatever she was planning on making <em>had</em> to be better than the carrot monstrosity.</p><p>The mother and toddler lined up behind them and the little girl reached out to Natasha, one chubby fist clutching the sticker sheet. She gave up her free hand for another unicorn and reassured the mother that it was okay, and Clint watched the whole exchange with a kind of warmth building in his chest, a feeling under his skin that he remembered from long ago. Natasha’s lips relaxed into a shy smile and it felt a bit like the world lit up in a colour he hadn’t seen before.</p><p>He carried the bags on the way home, letting Natasha thread her arm through his as they walked the quiet streets. The air was icy, the sidewalk covered in a fresh dusting of snow that hadn’t been trampled by busy New Yorkers yet, and it felt like a real Christmas for the first time in years. There were fairy lights and window displays full of wrapped gifts, and when they stopped at a crossing underneath a sprig of mistletoe that had seen better days Natasha reached up to press her cold lips to his cheek.</p><p>“For luck,” she told him, and his heartbeat echoed in her footsteps the rest of the walk home.</p><p>No one was awake when they returned, so they rode the elevator up to his floor and unpacked the groceries before crawling back into his bed. She pressed her frozen toes against his calves and melted into the side of him, arm heavily draped over his stomach so that he could feel her in every fibre of his being. Eyes closed and lips pressed to her temple, he floated on the edge of a dream that wasn’t as good as reality.</p><p>“Thank you for coming” Natasha whispered.</p><p>Clint hummed. “Always. Anytime.”</p><p>He fought to open his eyes and look at her, knowing that these moments were few and far between; these moments of soft intimacy, with Natasha wrapped around him and her nose scrunched slightly against his chest, her whole body breathing in sync with his. And her features could be carved from marble and dipped in gold for the way that they glowed in the moonlight, and he would never get used to it, he was sure. He would never get used to loving her like the world would end again, so fiercely that it left him breathless.</p><p>“Stop staring,” Natasha mumbled, lips pulling up at the corner. “I can feel it.”</p><p>“Can’t help that you’re so beautiful.”</p><p>Natasha poked her fingers into the back of his ribs, then pulled herself even closer to him, tilting her head until their lips could meet in a lazy kiss that he felt right down to his toes. He couldn’t help but smile, too, fingers entwining in her hair as he kissed her back softly, taking his time to memorise the feeling of her right now. Everything around him turned to white noise. The only thing he cared about was laying right in front of him.</p><p>“Cheesy,” she said against his lips. “You’re an idiot.”</p><p>“Fight me,” he teased. “I’m right.”</p><p>“Whatever,” she said, pulling away so that she could press her nose into his chest again. “I still can't sleep.”</p><p>“That bad?” he asked, frowning. She had been doing relatively okay, though there were still nights that ended with her roaming the Tower and him stopping her from running, and despite the progress he knew it would never end. There would always be nightmares; it was how they helped each other through them that counted.</p><p>She nodded. “I can’t get it out of my head.”</p><p>“I’ll tell you a bedtime story,” he said softly, and at her snort of question he rubbed her back absently. “Don’t shake it before you try it.”</p><p>“Fine,” she muttered, closing her eyes. “Tell me a story.”</p><p>“So, once upon a time, I passed out drunk and woke up in Fury’s bed,” Clint began. He held a finger up to Natasha’s lips when her eyes flew open in shock and gave her a pointed look. “No, not like <em>that</em>, Jesus. He wasn’t there, but Coulson was. Hill too, I think, curled up at the end like a cat. Anyway, we were all hungover. The end?”</p><p>“Are you asking me or telling me, Barton?” Natasha said. “What kind of story was that?”</p><p>“A good one?” he tried sheepishly. “C’mon, Nat. It’s like two a.m.”</p><p>“I know,” she sighed. “Okay. I’ll try.”</p><p>“Okay,” Clint repeated. He found her hand in the dark and brushed his thumb over the unicorn sticker that she had left there. “You know, you’re not so bad with kids.”</p><p>“I like them,” Natasha replied easily. “Their innocence. You know, sometimes it’s not so crazy.”</p><p>“What’s not so crazy?” he asked, but her breath was already heavy across his face, her body relaxed in his arms. He thought he knew anyway, because he had imagined it, too. Giving it all up, disappearing into some kind of normalcy that included little baby feet and real bedtime stories. It would be different, something that neither of them had ever trained for.</p><p>He watched her eyelids flicker and thought about how it wasn’t that crazy at all.   </p><p> </p><p>They locked the front door the next morning, wary of Stark intruding when they still hadn’t revealed the full extent of their partnership to the team. It wasn’t that they didn’t trust them, but Clint knew that even after a year they still didn’t trust <em>him</em>, and it was hard to coexist with them when there was a small part of him that wondered if he would be there at all if it wasn’t for Natasha. Not even Coulson had known, really, but Clint wished he could tell him.</p><p>He liked Rogers. He liked Stark, too, but for a different reason, a reason that mainly revolved around the fact that he had offered them a place to stay. Living in the Tower was a far cry from the month they had spent at the farm, though Clint could get used to the view from his room. They had crawled back to New York at the start of the year, still licking fresh wounds and more than a little world-weary, and there had already been two floors waiting for them with no strings attached. It took time to adjust, but it was better than SHIELD for now.</p><p>Natasha had attempted to make breakfast, though the frown that laced her features told him that she hadn’t succeeded in the way she intended. He watched in quiet amusement as she piled far too much whipped cream on top of a sad stack of pancakes, then sprinkled a generous amount of cinnamon over the top. He wasn’t sure she actually knew what constituted a good flavour combination, but he had to give her credit for trying.</p><p>“This isn’t how it looked online,” she said. “I think I forgot the eggs.”</p><p>“You have a photographic memory and you <em>still </em>got the recipe wrong?” Clint asked, carefully accepting his plate from her. He sniffed it delicately, shooting cinnamon up his nose and causing him to erupt into a fit of sneezes.</p><p>“Do you require assistance, Agent Barton?” JARVIS’s voice floated from the ceiling and made Natasha jump, her hand reaching for a weapon she didn’t have. “My apologies for frightening you, Agent Romanoff.”</p><p>Natasha rolled her eyes. “I thought we agreed that you would leave us alone.”</p><p>“Yea,” Clint wheezed. “What she said.”</p><p>JARVIS didn’t respond, so Natasha took her own plate to the couch and he followed along hesitantly, not entirely trusting the food in his hands. He sat right beside her, thighs touching, stretching his legs out alongside hers so their sock clad feet could knock together. The Christmas tree they were planning on decorating that afternoon stood right by the window, filling the room with the sharp scent of pine. All they needed was a fireplace and it would feel like home.</p><p>“I want to watch a Christmas movie,” Natasha declared. She took her wooden fork and cut off a chunk of her own pancakes, shoving it into her mouth and chewing thoughtfully. “This isn’t so bad.”</p><p>Clint wasn’t convinced, but he had a bite anyway. “Could definitely be worse.”</p><p>“Christmas movie,” Natasha insisted. “We have three Christmases to make up for. We haven’t had a real one since…”</p><p>“I died or whatever,” Clint said softly. “Hey, I have a suggestion. JARVIS?”</p><p>“Yes?”</p><p>He didn’t think he would ever get used to the idea of talking to an AI. “Play The Grinch? For Tash?”</p><p>The TV came to life without warning, and Clint grinned as the opening scene of The Grinch started to play. Natasha pushed herself even closer to him, ditching the fork to eat the pancakes with her fingers instead, and all he could think was how beautiful she was, how <em>lucky </em>he felt; how easy it would be to just say the words that had been lodged in his throat for months. He watched her instead of the movie, unable to tear his eyes from her face.</p><p>“They were so mean to him,” Natasha whispered, lower lip trembling the way it always did when she was upset. She entwined their hands, sticky fingers clutching at his as she watched the screen intently. “He was just a kid.”</p><p>“Are you… are you <em>crying</em>?” Clint asked incredulously. “Tasha, it’s just a movie.”</p><p>“It’s mean,” she insisted. “Don’t laugh at me.”</p><p>“I’m not,” he assured her. He kissed the side of her head, letting his lips linger there for a moment as he hid his smile behind her hair. “God, I love you. Marry me.”</p><p>“You don’t get to propose to me like this,” Natasha said without taking her eyes off the movie. “You need a ring.”</p><p>Clint blinked. “Is that a no?”</p><p>“No, but it’s not a yes.” She turned to finally meet his gaze, and he was relieved to see amusement shining in her eyes. “Phil would tell you to get down on one knee.”</p><p>“And I would’ve told him that my knees are old and one of them clicks,” he said seriously. “C’mon, you <em>know </em>I’ve dislocated it, like, four times.”</p><p>“That’s not my problem,” she said. “I like this movie.”</p><p>“Yea, well I like <em>you</em>,” Clint murmured, wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her onto his lap. She went willingly, though she rolled her eyes towards the ceiling in what he assumed was mild irritation. “You know it’s not crazy, right?”</p><p>“What’s that?” she asked.</p><p>“To get married,” he said. “Or… You know you wouldn’t be bad with a kid.”</p><p>Natasha tilted her head to the side. “I can't have children, Clint.”</p><p>“I know,” he said softly. He shrugged and felt his cheeks flood with colour, and it wasn’t like him to be embarrassed in front of her, but it meant so much, to share this with her. He could count on one hand his wants; they had just changed, somewhat, to include more than anything he had ever imagined. “I was in foster care.”</p><p>“I know,” she echoed, features softening. “You wouldn’t be so bad, either.”</p><p>Clint kissed her just because he could, though part of it was because he didn’t quite know where to go from here. It was scary, a kind of fear he hadn’t felt since the first year at the farm when every move he made could be the end of something that had barely started. He didn’t want to be scared with her. He didn’t want to feel like they had to do anything other than what they were doing now.</p><p>Natasha bought her hands up to cup his cheeks, thumbs brushing the corners of his mouth. He could taste creamy cinnamon on her lips, and it reminded him of swinging legs over the city, her shoulder against his as they drank eggnog amongst the stars. How many lifetimes had he lived before he found home in her arms?</p><p>“I’m going to marry you,” Natasha whispered. “And maybe one day it won't be so crazy to have a kid, too.”</p><p>“Okay,” he said. “Just cause we can't have a baby <em>naturally </em>doesn’t mean we can't <em>try</em>.”</p><p>Natasha snorted. “Subtle, Barton. We can try after the movie.”</p><p>“What?” Clint protested. She pulled away and sat beside him again, resting her head on his shoulder and redirecting her attention to the TV. “Tasha, I can pause the movie.”</p><p>“No,” she said pointedly. “We need to finish it.”</p><p>Clint shook his head but settled down next to her again, content to spend the rest of the day wrapped in her warmth and excitement. It was just what he needed before Stark’s party that night, because no amount of sweet-talk from Natasha had convinced him it was a good way to spend Christmas Eve. He missed Coulson, and Stark’s party felt weirdly like betrayal, even though it had taken her to finally convince him to attend one of his parties in the first place.</p><p>But missing Coulson was like missing a limb now; an ache that would never truly go away. He held Natasha a little tighter and watched the Grinch’s heart grow, feeling his own heart grow with it.</p><p> </p><p>Natasha bounced on the spot, fingers tapping rapidly against her legs as she impatiently waited for him to finish securing the Fury-angel to the top of their tree. They had decorated it with an assortment of baubles and lights that didn’t really match, and Natasha had taken her tinsel draping so seriously that Clint couldn’t fault a single strand of it. Now, he was trying to buy himself a little time before he gave her the presents he had been saving for the past two years.</p><p>“It looks fine,” she said, then smiled at him softly. “It looks great. Best tree ever.”</p><p>“You’re just saying that because you want your presents,” Clint teased, sitting beside her. “Go on, grab one then.”</p><p>Natasha’s hands shot under the tree, grabbing the smaller of the two gifts he had wrapped for her. He was nervous, if only because he had not really expected to give her them after their argument, even though he had obsessed over it for months. He watched warily as she carefully tore the tape from the paper, letting the small jewellery box fall into her lap.</p><p>“Oh,” she said on a breath, delicately lifting the small arrow necklace out of the box. “I love it.”</p><p>Clint sagged in relief. “You do? That’s good, cause it’s kinda past the return date.”</p><p>“When did you get this?” Natasha asked. She carefully clasped it around her neck, letting it rest against the hollow of her throat. It glinted in the light from the tree, reflecting in her eyes.</p><p>“After I was shot,” he admitted. “I had it with me in Budapest, actually. Didn’t feel appropriate in the end.”</p><p>Natasha winced. “I’m sorry.”</p><p>“Don’t,” he said, waving her off. “We’ve had this conversation before, right?”</p><p>“Right.” She grinned and gently touched the tiny arrow. “I really love it. I don’t think I need a ring after all.”</p><p>“Is that a real yes then?” he asked hopefully.</p><p>“Open your gift,” she laughed, shoving one of his presents at him. He ignored her changing the subject and tore into the paper, stopping when he saw an identical box to the one that Natasha had just opened. “<em>Open </em>it.”</p><p>There were two gold-plated cufflinks inside the box, the hourglass shape an obvious reference to the symbol she wore on her belt. It wasn’t often that he wore a suit, but the gift still made his throat tight with emotion. He surged forward to press a kiss to her lips, unable to find the words to tell her how much it meant to him. He had never had something this <em>nice </em>before.</p><p>“Goodnight Moon,” Natasha read, holding her second gift carefully in her hands. “This looks sweet.”</p><p>“Another book my mum used to read me,” Clint said, finally finding his voice. “Not as good as the Velveteen Rabbit, though.”</p><p>“I love that book,” Natasha said softly. She opened her box of candy next, then chewed her lip nervously as she watched him unwrap his second one. “I hope you like it.”</p><p>He recognised her sketchbook immediately, having seen it more often than not over the last few years. He flipped through the first pages and realised with a start that she had drawn much more than he had ever imagined; a painting of the mountain was on a page next to the SHIELD insignia, and there were plenty of portraits of him, too. He saw himself with his bow, with a coffee, with his feet kicked up on the desk in the middle of a debrief. The room was so silent he could hear a pin drop but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the pages.</p><p>There were paintings of her nightmares, too. He had heard enough to know what they consisted of, but to see them sketched out made it all the more real. There was a figure without a face, a building in ruins, his body bleeding out across the paper; he saw her fears, swirls of blue across the pages that showed the aftermath of New York. She had poured her heart into the paintings and he could tell, just by looking at the brush strokes, that it hadn’t been easy for her.</p><p>Her first days at SHIELD were a haze of grey; one of their mission in the Sahara burnt orange across his irises; a painting of the two of them in bed was bathed in pink light and the final portrait of Coulson shone golden and true, the perfect representation of the man who had helped change their lives. And she had mapped out every detail of it, wrapping it in a bow to share with him, now, years after their first meeting.</p><p>“Tasha,” he started, then wiped the tear that had managed to break through his walls. “I can't – ”</p><p>“There have been a lot of things that I wanted to say,” Natasha said carefully, then pushed on despite the nervousness he could read on her face. “But I never knew how. So I drew it instead, in case… In case I ever needed to tell you.”</p><p>“I love you,” he said fiercely, because he was sure that was what she meant. She had mapped out a love story that they never could have predicted, even in the stars. He had been tied to her from the moment he laid eyes on her, and not even Shakespeare could have written it so poetically. “Nat, this is the best present I’ve ever been given.”</p><p>“I’m glad you like it,” she said. “We should probably head down., though”</p><p>“Wait,” Clint said, handing her another gift. “Open this one first.”</p><p>Natasha raised an eyebrow but carefully peeled back the paper to reveal a Faberge egg, then sat staring at it for so long that Clint thought he had made the wrong decision. Except she held it so carefully, with a kind of tenderness he only saw occasionally, and her face changed from curiosity to excitement to adoration, and he knew that he had got it right this time.</p><p>“Do you know how hard these are to find?” she whispered.</p><p>Clint grinned. “Yea. Bet my career on that one.”</p><p>Natasha just shook her head, and Clint thought he knew what she meant when she said she didn’t always know what to say. She looked beautiful, with her hair straightened and her party dress glittering in the light, and he could go on and on about how much he adored her. Instead, he whispered the story of the Faberge egg in her ear and locked the sound of her laughter away in his chest.</p><p> </p><p>Clint didn’t like parties, though he had to admit that Stark’s party was on a whole other level that not even he had been prepared for. There weren’t many people there, though Maria had rolled in shortly after they had and immediately challenged Thor to a drinking contest, and now Natasha was somehow caught up in the middle of it all, grinning wickedly as she poured them both another shot of vodka.</p><p>He was buzzed enough that he could enjoy himself, so long as he avoided any real conversation with anyone. Pepper was courteous, and he even had a beer with Bruce at one point, but now he had migrated to the food table so that he could eat as much of Natasha’s weird salad as possible so she wouldn’t feel bad that nobody <em>else </em>was eating it. Even though he had watched her make it, he still wasn’t really sure what was in it.</p><p>“This is a little different to the Christmas Eve’s I’m used to,” Steve said from beside him.</p><p>Clint swallowed a chunk of bologna and something that might have been a pickle. “It’s Stark. Hard to expect anything less.”</p><p>“What’s that you’re eating?” Steve asked, and Clint shrugged, waving his fork at it aimlessly.</p><p>“Some Russian thing Nat made. It’s a… salad.”</p><p>“You don’t sound so convinced,” Steve chuckled. He had a swig of his beer and gestured to where she was currently holding both Maria’s <em>and</em> Thor’s hair back. “It’s hard to get a read on Natasha, but I think I’d like to get to know her.”</p><p>“Oh yea,” Clint said, frowning. He stabbed at an egg and wondered absently if there was any cutlery Natasha could use. “She’s pretty great.”</p><p>“Do you think she’s seeing anyone?” Steve asked.</p><p>Clint choked on the egg. “<em>Romantically?</em>”</p><p>“Yea,” he replied, ears turning slightly pink. “I just think I’d like to get to know her a little better. As a teammate.”</p><p>“Oh sure,” Clint laughed, shaking his head. “We’ve all heard that one before, Rogers. Why don’t you ask her yourself?”</p><p>“Ask me what?” Natasha asked, appearing beside him like he had summoned her there. She reached out and plucked a pea from his plate, nibbling on it delicately with her nose scrunched. “Do you think I should have added more onion?”</p><p>“It’s fine,” Clint assured her. He wasn’t convinced that the combination of beer and mayonnaise wouldn’t kill him, but it was a hill he was willing to die on if it made her happy. “Steve wanted to know if you were seeing anybody.”</p><p>Steve elbowed him sharply in the side and he winced, wondering why it had to be him, of all people, who got stuck between Captain America and Natasha. He was curious to see her reaction, though, even if the subtle death glare she was shooting him was sharp enough to cut glass.</p><p>“I’m married,” Natasha said eventually.</p><p>Steve’s eyes widened in horror. “Oh… That’s… That’s great, Natasha. I’m sorry if I – ”</p><p>“Don’t worry, Rogers,” she assured him, swiping her finger through Clint’s salad again. “I’ll still kick your ass at the gym.”</p><p>“You gonna kick <em>my </em>ass at the gym?” Clint asked.</p><p>Natasha rolled her eyes. “Yes.”</p><p>“That a promise?”</p><p>She laughed, turning to the table to pour herself another glass of eggnog. Maria was walking around again, so Clint could at least relax knowing that she was mobile, and the party seemed to have settled into the kind of easy night that he could enjoy. There was even a spot on the couch with Bruce and Rhodey, so maybe he could sneak over there for a while. Even though she didn’t look that drunk, Clint knew Natasha well enough by now to know that she was definitely past the point of tipsy, but she enjoying herself too and that was all that mattered.</p><p>He was shocked out of his thoughts by the feeling of her lips on his, and it took everything in him to keep holding the plate instead of wrapping his arms around her. Steve coughed awkwardly and Natasha pulled away with the kind of mischievous look in her eyes that told Clint it wasn’t all she had up her sleeve. She winked at Steve and had a generous mouthful of eggnog.</p><p>“Don’t tell my husband,” she said before she walked back into the crowd.</p><p>Clint felt the need to explain. “We’re not actually married yet.”</p><p>“It’s okay,” Steve said slowly. “Um, congratulations?”</p><p>“Thanks,” Clint said earnestly. He caught sight of Natasha and stuck his tongue out at her, and she flipped him off gracefully, leaning over to whisper something in Pepper’s ear that made her laugh. And then she smiled at him softly, the look on her face entirely for him, and he felt himself melt just a little bit more.</p><p> </p><p>It was early in the morning when they finally crawled into bed, sleeping in Natasha’s room to save the extra few seconds in the elevator. He forced some water and an Advil down his throat and fell heavily beside her in the bed, landing on something that dug into his belly.</p><p>“What’s this?” he asked, holding the offending item up.</p><p>“That thing,” Natasha muttered. “Flip thing. Inside out. <em>Phil</em>.”</p><p>“Oh yea,” he said. He flipped the toy from happy to angry and couldn’t help the abrupt laughter that left his mouth. “Weird.”</p><p>Natasha threw her leg over both of his, hooking her ankle around his calves so she could burrow right against his side. She smelt like Christmas and vodka and every bad decision that had led to them both being too drunk, and he breathed it in deeply until his head stopped swimming.</p><p>“Merry Christmas Clint,” she mumbled sleepily. “Let’s have a baby.”</p><p>“Okay,” he agreed. “Let’s do it now.”</p><p>Neither of them moved, and Clint felt his body turn to dead-weight. He was warm and full and happy; happy to be there, in a bed in Tony Stark’s tower, lying next to the woman he loved on Christmas morning. He had eaten her entire salad and she had kissed him sweetly in the hallway, and he already knew the hangover would be worth it in the morning.</p><p>“Not now,” Natasha said eventually. She pinched his side then left her arm hanging over his stomach. “Hey. I mean it Barton.”</p><p>“I know you do,” he said softly. “I do too. But we got time. And things to figure out.”</p><p>“Okay,” she whispered.</p><p>“Okay,” he repeated.</p><p>It wouldn’t be easy. Whatever they decided wouldn’t be easy, and he knew that. He knew that she knew it too, but it didn’t matter what might happen, in the end. They could stay with the Avengers or go back to SHIELD and they would still have each other, and that was all that Clint cared about. Or they could start something new, something scary and exciting and unlike anything they had had before.</p><p>“Can you juice my oranges tomorrow?” Natasha asked.</p><p>Clint smiled to himself. “Course. Merry Christmas, Nat.”</p><p>And maybe that something scary wouldn’t be so scary after all. Maybe, it would just be nice.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
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<a name="section0010"><h2>10. 2014</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>this is... so late. i am so sorry but my life was crazy and i worked 6 days straight last week and i'm also trying to buy a house!! i'm stressed and prone to ✨breakdowns✨ but here we are!! a few days late and not exactly what i wanted to post but it's fine.</p><p>thank u guys for the support and everything and i love u all so much ❤️ two chapters to go!! (i have some Big projects in the works dw) enjoy!! x</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
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    <strong>2014</strong>
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</blockquote><p> </p><p>Clint was in Nicaragua when it happened.</p><p>The mission was straight forward and over before it really began. He didn’t think anything of it when his comms went down on the way back to his hotel room; he had been having problems with his new handler all week, and it wouldn’t be the first time that the rookie had pressed the wrong button when trying to get his sitrep. He wasn’t Coulson, that was for sure, but Clint had to give him points for trying.</p><p>He found the body in the alley. He didn’t waste time going inside to grab his tac bag, immediately noticing the glint of a rifle in the fifth-floor window that could only be meant for him. He didn’t know who they were or what they wanted but he wasn’t an idiot, and the USB drive tucked securely away in his vest pocket suddenly seemed to weigh a hundred pounds. He pulled an arrow out of his quiver and retraced his steps, just in case.</p><p>There was no resistance as he made his way through the back streets of Chinandega, and it only made his stomach twist tighter, nerves making his fingers twitch around his bow. It wasn’t like him to be anxious, and he knew, logically, that the mission could have simply been compromised and his handler was nothing more than an unfortunate casualty. But <em>something</em>, some other kind of feeling he wasn’t used to, had him pulling his burner phone out to dial Natasha’s number anyway.</p><p>It was disconnected. Clint dropped his phone on the pavement and stomped on it, then kicked the pieces out across the road. Odds were Natasha had a new number, considering how prone she was to destroying her phones in the middle of a mission, but still. Last Clint had heard, she was set to fly out with Rogers to some ship in the middle of the ocean.</p><p>Clint didn’t dwell on it. He caught a bus to the airport, then hired a car and drove two hours to Los Brasiles instead, booking a flight on a plane that had seen better days. He had no way to contact SHIELD and report his handler’s death, no way to find out exactly what had gone wrong. There was a feeling in the pit of his stomach that told him not to go back to base, and it wasn’t something he wanted to ignore.</p><p>Coulson would tell him to trust his gut, and Clint still listened to Coulson even though it had been two years since his death. The plane lurched and Clint thumbed the USB drive, wondering absently what was on it. Natasha had been looking for information, too, though he only knew a little of what her mission entailed. Going behind Rogers’ back seemed counter-intuitive to the whole <em>teammate </em>thing they were trying out, and she hadn’t been sold on the idea even though it had come from Fury.</p><p>Steve was a good guy. Clint felt better knowing that Natasha had been partnered with him, if only because he also knew that Steve’s moral compass was too strong to ever leave her behind. It wasn’t like SHIELD and all of the agents who still looked at her like she was a piece of meat; Steve was a friend, and he never treated her any less than he treated anyone else. He never treated <em>Clint</em> any less, and Clint had literally tried to kill him once.</p><p>“I get you to Mexico,” the pilot called over his shoulder. “You get over border.”</p><p>“All good,” Clint replied. He pocketed the USB drive again and let his head fall back against the seat. “I’ve got nowhere to be.”</p><p><em>Nowhere to be except wherever Natasha is</em>, he thought absently. He couldn’t know what he was flying into, couldn’t know that the world he trusted had been turned on its head, that the <em>people </em>he trusted had been leading a double life. He flew into Mexico with an inkling of apprehension and a drive full of information, and he couldn’t know that Natasha was miles away, sitting before the Senate with all of their secrets floating in the air between them.</p><p>Clint was in Nicaragua when it happened.  </p><p> </p><p>He decided to fly out of Mexico, too, booking a flight that would take him straight back to New York and away from whatever had gone wrong on the mission. They hadn’t even had backup in Nicaragua, so convinced Fury was that the mission was simple enough. Clint felt a little bad about leaving his handler behind, but it wouldn’t take SHIELD long to retrieve his body and bring it back for his family, if he had any.</p><p>Clint hadn’t asked. He thought about it as he bought a packet of Cheetos for the flight, wondering if he should have made more effort with the guy. He hadn’t seen the partnership lasting beyond the mission so he hadn’t tried to get to know him, but now it left a kind of hollow feeling in his chest, knowing that he had died and Clint wasn’t even sure if he was married or not.</p><p>He saw her as he was paying for the Cheetos. The tiny TV behind the counter was grainy and a little delayed, but Natasha’s hair was impossible to miss. He froze, eyes glued to the Spanish subtitles as her figure on the screen stood and moved towards the cameras, eyes daring anyone to stop her from leaving.</p><p>“<em>So if you want to arrest me, arrest me. You know where to find me</em>.”</p><p>Clint pointed at the TV. “Is this live?”</p><p>The cashier turned his head slightly, then shrugged a shoulder. “They’ve been playing it for the last two days. Something about a – hey, you need to pay!”</p><p>Clint barely heard him, ears ringing as he stumbled out of the store, suddenly hyper-aware of the people around him. He didn’t have a phone or any other way to try and contact Natasha, and it made his heart thump frantically in his chest. He started walking, keeping his head down until he could grab a cap and sunglasses from a kiosk to cover his face.</p><p>He found a newspaper and unfurled it to find headline after headline about SHIELD; his Spanish was a little rusty, and languages had always been Natasha’s thing anyway, but he could read enough to begin putting the pieces together. His head felt like it was floating, his body going numb as the words swam in front of his eyes. SHIELD had been labelled a terrorist organisation, and all of his secrets, all of his past identities, were available for anyone to see.</p><p>Loki sprang to mind immediately, and he fought the panic down. He needed to get home. He needed to find Natasha and get to the farm, the only place that hadn’t been exposed to millions of people worldwide. He was grateful that he had the farm, but it still left him breathless to think of every safe house between here and New York that he couldn’t use to get back now. He needed a plan, and making plans wasn’t his strong suit.</p><p>He still had the flight to New York, but he didn’t want to risk being in the air for any longer than necessary, <em>just in case</em>. Anything could happen in the time between take off and touch down; he knew, because he had once watched Maria lose a toe somewhere over Siberia from frostbite that had taken them all by surprise, and the memory of her screaming was too deeply ingrained in his psyche now. He needed to get out of the country and somewhere <em>safer</em>, wherever that may be.</p><p>Clint only had the USB drive and the clothes on his back. Somehow, it still wasn’t the worst situation he had been in.</p><p> </p><p>It took him a week to get back to America. Shaking tails became second nature in a way that it hadn’t been for a while, and he found himself slipping easily back into past habits. It felt a little like it did at the beginning, before he had even met Coulson; creeping around without leaving a trace was a bit like wearing a second skin, and it made him itch somewhere deep inside. He thought he had left it all behind, had thought that joining SHIELD was coming clean, but he’d heard a rumour, once. Cut off one head and two more take its place.</p><p>Natasha wasn’t in New York when he eventually rolled in. Stark hadn’t seen her since the Senate hearing, and Clint felt antsy enough to let himself sit and sip at expensive whiskey for a minute. Avengers Tower was a lot more open than he remembered. He kept his sightlines open, trying not to let the floor-to-ceiling windows get the better of him. Last time he had been here, she had made him hot cocoa with the little marshmallows he liked.</p><p>“So,” Stark said eventually. “Should I have dropped a Hail Hydra at the door?”</p><p>Clint snorted. “If that’s what the kids are doing these days.”</p><p>“Didn’t see it coming,” he admitted, and Clint thought he detected a hint of regret in his voice. “All the tech in the world didn’t see it coming. JARVIS, what are the odds of SHIELD being infiltrated by an authoritarian organisation hell-bent on world domination?”</p><p>“Currently, sir, the odds – ”</p><p>“I don’t need to know that,” Clint interrupted, waving his hand dismissively. “What I need to know is who I can trust. And where Nat is.”</p><p>“The triple imposter herself,” Tony muttered. “You sure <em>she’s</em> not Hydra?”</p><p>Clint bit his tongue, swallowing his anger before he said something he regretted. “She addressed her darkest secrets on live TV, Stark. Nat doesn’t tell anyone anything willingly.”</p><p>“I’ve seen worse liars,” Tony said, then shrugged. “Look, whatever you and Romanoff do, that’s not – I don’t really care. I care that I might have let double-agents into my home, though.”</p><p>“Is this you asking, officially?” Clint said drily.</p><p>Tony nodded. “Covering my ass is what I do best.”</p><p>Clint blew out a breath. “Not Hydra, or whatever. Nat’s not hydra. I’ll bet my life on it.”</p><p>“Could be a short life,” he commented. “I haven’t heard a word from her or Rogers. Something could be going on there, actually. Having your life turned upside down overnight is enough to break most people.”</p><p>“Nat’s not most people,” Clint said softly. He had another sip of whiskey, ignoring the tremble to his fingers. He had a bow in the hall that he could get to before Stark was in a suit, but he forced the thought from his head before it had time to fully form. He wasn’t the enemy here; he was probably Clint’s best chance at finding Natasha.</p><p>“Just because she doesn’t do <em>normal </em>feelings doesn’t mean she won't run off with Captain Sparkles the second the world gets too heavy.”</p><p>And yes, Natasha didn’t do normal feelings, but Clint had quickly learnt that there was no such thing as a normal feeling anyway. She had taught him that excitement could look like fear, in the beginning, the type of fear that stemmed from not knowing how excitement <em>should </em>look. But she had made it up herself, had let joy burst out of her body, had let pain send her running, and all of it amounted to a new life with new feelings, and it was like seeing colours for the first time.</p><p>Clint had never <em>felt </em>like that before her. He had never seen purple or pink or the pine green of a Christmas tree before her. Snow was cold, but it was warm in her arms. He would shoot Fury before he even considered the fact that she could be Hydra. He knew in his bones, somewhere deep inside of him that only she had touched, that she wasn’t anyone other than who she said she was.</p><p>“We’re married,” Clint said eventually. “Off the records, redacted, whatever. We’re married and I need to make sure she’s okay.”</p><p>“Did I step into a parallel universe?” Tony asked incredulously. “When did the two of you have time to get <em>married</em>?”</p><p>“April,” Clint replied, because that was all he would ever give Tony Stark. That was all he would ever give anyone, no matter the circumstances. “We had a weekend off.”</p><p>Fury had been there, and Natasha’s hair had brushed her shoulders when she marched down the makeshift aisle, lip still split from the mission that had sent her head flying into a wall. Maria had been his best man and the opal earrings from a lifetime ago had sparkled in the spring sun. It had been short and sweet and they had spent their honeymoon fighting mercenaries in Bangladesh, back to back like they were two halves of the same whole.</p><p>“Congratulations,” Tony said wearily. He downed the rest of his own drink and got up to pour another. “I guess there’s a <em>real </em>reason you’re here then.”</p><p>“Just need a radio,” Clint said carefully. “There’s some old channels I want to check, in case she’s trying to reach me.”</p><p>“Of course you don’t have phones like normal people,” Tony scoffed. “You’re married and you don’t know where your wife is. How long have you two even known each other?”</p><p>Clint lifted a shoulder. “A while.”</p><p>“Romanoff is what? Thirty? How long is a <em>while</em>?”</p><p>“Thirty-four,” he replied absently, standing to place his glass on the bar. “Give or take a year.”</p><p>Tony stared at him. “There should be some kind of radio in the workshop. Don’t touch anything that <em>looks </em>breakable.”</p><p>Clint didn’t reply, not sure that a simple <em>thank you </em>would be enough to convey exactly how much it meant to him that Stark was helping him out. He knew what it was like to chase Natasha; he’d done it twice, now, and the second time hadn’t been any easier than the first. If she wanted to disappear then she would, though he held a little hope that she would leave some kind of clue for him. He was confident enough to believe that they were past the point of hiding from each other.</p><p>The workshop was dimly lit. Clint found a radio and sat by it for a while, twisting the knobs until the static in his head tapered out. He knew the channels like the back of his hand and yet his fingers hesitated over the headphones. When he found her it would be real, and that was perhaps the scariest part of it all; he still had one hand on the wheel, and taking both off would send him spinning onto a course that he could never have prepared for.</p><p>SHIELD was gone. Natasha wasn’t. In the end, the choice had been made for him.</p><p> </p><p>The farm looked lonely and cold by the time Clint made his way there in early December. It had been a long trip and he was more than a little world-weary, clutching at his bow as he walked towards the porch. He didn’t have much in the way of personal belongings now, just his bow and a backpack that he had hastily packed after leaving New York, but all of his important things were locked up inside the old house now anyway.</p><p>Hauling everything out of his SHIELD room last year had been a headache. Natasha’s bout of paranoia had paid off, though.</p><p>The snow around the steps was untouched. Clint climbed them slowly, scratching at the stubble on his chin that was too close to becoming a beard to even call stubble anymore. He noticed a clear spot on the porch, like someone had brushed some of the snow aside without realising, so he readied an arrow and toed open the door, concerned to find that it wasn’t locked.</p><p>There was the sound of a gun cocking, and then an impossible kind of silence seemed to descend on the foyer. The only sound was the wind beginning to pick up outside, whistling through the cracks in the windows that Clint had never had time to fix. The door closed behind him and the little light it had let in vanished, leaving him standing in the dark with only an inkling and the echo of a gun as his proof that he wasn’t alone.</p><p>“You gonna make me come in there?” Clint called into the house. His heart thudded in his ears despite how many times he had been in this exact scenario. The only difference was that it wasn’t usually <em>his </em>secret house that he was standing in. “I really don’t want to have to clean blood off this floor.”</p><p>“I’ll save you the effort then,” a voice said from somewhere within the darkness, and Clint felt every syllable like it had struck lightning right into his soul. He gasped; a hopeless, desperate sound that was almost entirely a sob, fingers twitching to release the arrow that he had trained directly at Coulson’s heart.</p><p>“You died,” Clint croaked. “You <em>died</em>.”</p><p>“Surprise,” Coulson said, though his voice lacked the humour that Clint had missed. “Not Hydra, not dead.”</p><p>Clint didn’t lower his bow. “How did you get here?”</p><p>“Natasha,” Coulson responded evenly. He set his own gun down and held his hands up, palms out. “She told me how to get here. Drew a map from memory, actually.”</p><p>“When?” Clint croaked.</p><p>“Before Loki,” Coulson replied. “Natasha doesn’t know – ”</p><p>“<em>When</em>?”</p><p>“After she came back from Budapest and terminated the partnership. She slept on my couch for a week.” Coulson looked genuinely upset, and it made some of the tension seep out of Clint’s shoulders. “She told me about the farm in case you never came back, so that I could find you.”</p><p>Clint felt so close to snapping that all he could do was whisper. “Why?”</p><p>“I think she was scared you wouldn’t come back for her,” Coulson admitted. “Clint, this isn’t fake. I’m sorry.”</p><p>The world didn’t make sense anymore. Clint sagged in on himself, letting the arrow slip through his fingers and hit the floor. He looked at Coulson and saw how <em>real</em> he was, and he looked exactly the same as he had two years ago; the lines around his eyes were more pronounced and his suit was actually crumpled for the first time ever, but he was the same man that Clint remembered from a lifetime ago.</p><p>“She’s gonna kill you,” he muttered. “Christ, Coulson. You died.”</p><p>“I’m sorry – ”</p><p>“You died and we mourned you,” he spat, suddenly angry. “I blamed myself for months. Natasha had to pick up the pieces. It’s not <em>fair</em>. We fucking mourned you.”</p><p>“I <em>did</em> die,” Coulson said. “Fury stepped in. If you’ll have me, I can explain it to you over a beer.”</p><p>Clint snorted. “Gonna take more than a beer to fix this one, sir.”</p><p>Coulson’s face fell just slightly. “It’s a good thing we have time, then.”</p><p>Clint toed out of his boots and stumbled into the lounge, falling onto the couch in a heap. He listened as Coulson moved around the kitchen, opening the fridge and then the cutlery drawer in search of a bottle opener. Clint didn’t understand what was going on or how Coulson could possibly be alive, but a part of him was too relieved to question it.</p><p>It hurt to know, too, that Coulson had hidden from them for two years. It had taken months for Clint to forgive himself for the events that led to his handler’s death, and even then they were still dealing with the repercussions of it now. He often dreamt in blue, his brain conjuring up images that he hadn’t even seen before, playing the scene over and over until it felt more real than the truth. How many times had he watched Coulson die when he closed his eyes?</p><p>“Here,” Coulson said, handing him a beer that had probably been left in the fridge for too long. “What do you want to know?”</p><p>“Have you seen Nat?” Clint asked. He swallowed and continued, picking at the label on the bottle. “I haven’t heard from her since after the hearing. Old channel gave me about five minutes to talk to her and then she just… vanished.”</p><p>Coulson frowned. “I haven’t seen her since New York. She was hell-bent on getting you back.”</p><p>“Yea, well, she knocked some sense into me,” Clint said. “Then she dragged my sorry ass back to your apartment. We stayed for longer than we thought.”</p><p>“Natasha wouldn’t have wanted to stick around,” Coulson said carefully. “You know her. She offered her past up on a silver platter and everyone expected her to walk out the other side unscathed. She’ll have things she needs to bury.”</p><p>“I never expected her to be okay,” Clint murmured. “I just wanted to help.”</p><p>Coulson had a mouthful of beer, face twisting slightly at the taste. “She watched Fury die, you know. They let her believe it for a while. I think she’s tired of ghosts coming back to life.”</p><p>“Like I said: she’s gonna kill you.”</p><p>“I wanted to tell you,” Coulson admitted. “Somehow it was easier for you to believe I was dead. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that you had reinstated the partnership.”</p><p>“We got married,” Clint told him. He let his head fall back against the couch cushions and ignored the chill in the room that began to gnaw at his exposed cheeks. “April. God, Phil. She was beautiful.”</p><p>“Congratulations,” Coulson said softly. “Clint, she <em>will </em>come back. We just need to give her time.”</p><p>“I know,” he sighed. “I know. Rogers saw me before I left the Tower and he said she seemed fine. He also said that she kissed him.”</p><p>Coulson raised an eyebrow. “Was he embarrassed?”</p><p>“Mortified,” Clint laughed. “He was expecting me to hit him, I think. Still might. She was shot.”</p><p>“Fury told me.” Coulson glanced around the living room, taking in the dusty furniture and the cold fireplace. “This is a nice place, Barton. I can see why you brought her here.”</p><p>“I was lucky it wasn’t in the files,” Clint said, then suddenly remembered the USB drive that he still carried in his pocket, just in case. He pulled it out and handed it to Coulson, glad to finally be rid of it. “This was what they sent me after in Nicaragua. You’re probably the only person still alive who I feel comfortable giving it to.”</p><p>“I’ll have my team look into it. Fury would have had his reasons for sending you after it.”</p><p>Now that the adrenaline of seeing Coulson alive was wearing off, Clint was reminded of just how tired he was. The beer tasted stale and the room was far too cold for him to be comfortable, and all he wanted to do was curl up in his bed and sleep for the next three days. His head felt heavy with information that he didn’t know how to deal with. So much had changed, and yet sitting in the living room felt so utterly normal that he could almost close his eyes and imagine that nothing had happened.</p><p>“You have a lot of explaining to do,” Clint said eventually. “But I need to sleep. You can help me fix the seal on the windows tomorrow.”</p><p>Coulson smiled. “Thank you.”</p><p>They stood and moved to the kitchen in sync, tipping the beer down the drain and tossing the bottles in the trash. Clint’s eyes lingered on the Santa photo that had been stuck to the fridge for the last ten years, unable to stop himself from reaching out to brush the tip of his finger over Natasha’s shocked face. They had both been so much younger, and the photo still made him laugh. Making Natasha smile back then had been an achievement, and now he was lucky enough to see it nearly every day.</p><p>He missed her smile. He wanted to show her Coulson so that she could stop blaming herself too. He wanted her to be back home with him so that he could find out what had really gone down in the Triskelion. He wanted to hold her hand and kiss her cheek and work out together what came next.</p><p>He wanted a lot of things.</p><p> </p><p>Clint was more than a little surprised when Coulson ended up staying for over a week. They kept themselves busy catching up on the last two years and tinkering around the house, falling into the kind of friendship that he thought they had lost. They cooked steaks for dinner and watched old football games late at night, and it all felt ordinarily normal. It was almost normal enough to distract Clint from the coil of anxiety deep in his gut that only grew the longer he didn’t see Natasha.</p><p>Coulson had enough stories to keep him entertained, and Clint was happy to have his oldest friend back, even if it had taken more than he had expected for him to forgive his handler. But he figured forgiveness was the easiest thing he could do, and Natasha’s words from a lifetime ago rang clearly in his head: <em>forgiveness is the most powerful thing we can do for each other</em>.</p><p>As December dwindled into days and Christmas rolled around with little fanfare, Clint found himself losing hope that he would see her before the year was out. His beard was scruffy now, longer than he had ever grown it before. He figured it was measuring the time they were losing, the days that were quickly melting away into each other until it all just felt like a dream.</p><p>It was five minutes past midnight on December 26<sup>th</sup> when he felt the cool winter air caress his face. He cracked an eye open, heard the squeak of the floorboard a second before he saw her, and then Natasha was standing over him like some ungodly figure that had crawled straight from the depths of Hell, her green eyes dull and haunted.</p><p>“Sorry I’m late,” she whispered. “Merry Christmas, Clint.”</p><p>He made room for her in the bed, immediately pulling her frozen form against him so that he could just relish in the fact that he was finally holding her. She pressed her cold toes into his thigh and he helped her pull wet gloves from her hands, rubbing them between his own until a little warmth returned to the extremities.</p><p>“You had me worried,” he told her, heart thumping painfully in his chest. “I saw you on the news.”</p><p>Her hair was longer now, though it looked like she had tried to haphazardly trim it at some point. “Everyone saw me on the news.”</p><p>“Thank god you’re okay,” he murmured against her temple. “I was worried. I’m too old to be worrying.”</p><p>“Please,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You weren’t too old to kick Evan’s ass when he came back to base.”</p><p>“You cut his finger off and he’s <em>still </em>trying to stick his hand down your shirt,” Clint groaned. “Guy had it coming. Besides, that was months ago. A lot’s changed since then.”</p><p>“I know,” Natasha murmured. “I had to make sure it was safe to come here. There was someone I needed to see in Moscow.”</p><p>Clint frowned. “They gonna be a problem?”</p><p>“No. She’s the only one I trust from before.” Natasha twisted in his arms so that he could look at her properly, and he noticed the deep purple bags under her eyes immediately. “I’ll tell you.”</p><p>“Not now,” Clint said softly. “You need to sleep. I’ve got news for you too.”</p><p>“I tried so hard to be here for Christmas,” she said. “I tried.”</p><p>“It’s okay,” Clint whispered. He hooked a finger under her chin and tilted her head up towards him, gently brushing his lips against hers. She pressed into him, deepening the kiss until his head was swimming. “Sleep, Tasha.”</p><p>She rested her head under his chin, entwining their fingers and bringing his knuckles up to kiss once. “Okay. I love you.”</p><p>“I love you too,” he told her. He felt his heart settle for the first time in months and held her a little tighter, just in case it was a dream. “Merry Christmas.”</p><p>He didn’t know how he would explain Coulson’s sudden resurrection to her, but he figured it was a problem for the morning. It was December 26<sup>th</sup> and SHIELD technically didn’t exist, but Natasha was in his arms and his handler was down the hall, and if he closed his eyes he could almost pretend that everything was exactly how it should be.</p><p> </p><p>“You died.”</p><p>Coulson smiled tightly. “I was resurrected. Top secret, of course. Fury wouldn’t let me tell you.”</p><p>“He lied to me,” Natasha said. Her eyes remained fixed on the table, shoulders hunched like she hadn’t quite decided if she was going to continue sitting there. Coulson appearing at the breakfast table before Clint had had a chance to explain anything had almost earnt him a bullet to the forehead, and Clint knew that not even Fury could bring him back from that.</p><p>“We’re in the business of lies, Natasha,” Coulson said carefully. “Fury lied to a lot of people. You should know that better than anyone.”</p><p>Natasha clenched her jaw. Clint sat beside her wondering vaguely if he needed to defuse the situation, because she looked like she was ready to explode and he really didn’t want her to be upset. It was a lot to take in, though, and even though he had had a couple of weeks to re-adjust it still felt like he was drowning sometimes.</p><p>“You died,” she whispered. “It almost killed Clint, too. How dare you come back and – ”</p><p>“Natasha, I never wanted to hurt either of you,” Coulson soothed. “I know it’s confusing and I know that you had accepted my death, but it was out of my hands. This wasn’t supposed to happen.”</p><p>“Two years,” Natasha hissed. “You lied for two years. <em>He </em>lied for two years.”</p><p>“It was difficult for me too,” Coulson said gently.</p><p>“Bullshit,” Natasha snapped, hand flying out to knock her glass from the table. Clint stared at the shards on the floor and almost missed the moment she stood and swept her arm across the table, sending plates and cutlery to the floor in a crescendo of shattering porcelain that made Clint’s ears ring. “We thought you were dead. We fucking <em>mourned</em>. We took half a year off and learnt how to live with the guilt so that it didn’t hollow us out.”</p><p>“Nat,” Clint said, holding his hand out to her. She stood over Coulson, body shaking with pure rage that he knew would send her running any second. “He didn’t have a choice. It’s okay.”</p><p>“He lied,” she said, words caught on the back of a sob. She pressed her hand against her mouth and choked on tears that seemed caught on her eyelashes. “Why did everyone lie to me?”</p><p>“I’m sorry, Natasha,” Coulson said, barely having time to steady himself before she was throwing herself against him, fingers clutching tightly at the back of his shirt. Coulson held her head against his chest and looked at Clint with such anguish written on his features that he knew he meant every word of his apology. “I’m sorry.”</p><p>Clint didn’t know how long they sat like that, Natasha clutching at Coulson like she had never felt human touch before and Clint absently kicking broken porcelain around under the table. He knew it would take more than this for Natasha to forgive Coulson completely, but it was a step in the right direction and the closest they had been to being whole ever since Hydra had reared its ugly head.</p><p>She eventually pulled away and wiped at her dry eyes, the pain on face on her face settling in the tiny lines of her crinkled forehead. Healing would be long and hard and everything in-between, and it would take more than a stint on the farm to get them back to feeling like the people who had formed Strike Team Delta. He didn’t think it would be so bad to reinvent themselves this time.</p><p>“I want to take you to the mall,” Clint told her. He waved off the look she gave him and smiled his most charming smile. “It’s a surprise. If you’re not going to eat breakfast then grab a lollipop and we’ll hit the road.”</p><p>Natasha picked through the glass to reach the candy drawer. “Special occasion?”</p><p>“It’s a surprise,” Clint said, waggling his eyebrows. He was glad to see the smile flicker across her face, even if it was only brief. “Coulson will tell you all about his secret life tonight.”</p><p>Coulson drew a cross over his heart. “Scout’s honour.”</p><p>“Okay,” she said. She led the way out to the truck without so much as a backwards glance, pulling a beanie over her curls. “You could have warned me about Phil.”</p><p>“Didn’t think it was the right kind of conversation to be having at midnight,” Clint grunted. He started the truck and watched as Natasha stretched her legs out on the dash, reaching over to squeeze her calf. “It took me a while to get used to it too.”</p><p>“There’s a lot of new things we need to get used to,” Natasha mumbled. She sucked on her lollipop and glanced at Clint. “Steve didn’t let me keep my feet on the dash.”</p><p>Clint frowned. “You can put your feet wherever you want to.”</p><p>Natasha laughed, his favourite sound echoing in the cab. “He called a lollipop a <em>sucker</em>.”</p><p>“A <em>what</em>?” Clint said incredulously, glancing at her. “Cut the crap, Romanoff.”</p><p>“I’m not lying,” she said, eyes wide. “He said sucker. I was also his first kiss since 1945.”</p><p>“Oh man,” Clint whistled. “How was that?”</p><p>“Not as good as kissing you.” She crunched on the lollipop loudly, then reached across the console to rest her hand on his thigh. “I think I’m in shock.”</p><p>“Probably,” Clint agreed. “We’re going to get a picture with Santa. We haven’t done that since your first Christmas.”</p><p>“Okay,” Natasha agreed easily. “I can't believe I missed Christmas by five minutes.”</p><p>Clint shrugged and turned the truck into the mall parking lot. “Anything can happen in five minutes. You’re here now, though, so we can just pretend it’s still really Christmas.”</p><p>The mall was busy, and Natasha entwined their fingers as they walked instead of holding his sleeve like she had the first time, and they blended in easily with the crowds; just two people enjoying the holiday season without needing to worry about the weight of their pasts, if only for a moment. They lined up at Santa’s Kingdom in comfortable silence, content just to be in each other’s presence again.</p><p>When it was finally their turn to meet Santa, Clint sat himself on the man’s lap and watched carefully to see what Natasha would do. After a moment’s hesitation she sat carefully on his other knee, eyes wide in wonder as she glanced at him quickly. He laughed, enthralled with her and the two of them and Christmas, and the photographer took the picture before he could focus and smile.</p><p>Natasha paid, and they huddled around the print-out against a wall away from the crowd. Clint was caught mid-laugh in the photo, and Natasha sat beside him with a soft smile, hair sticking haphazardly out from beneath her beanie. She took his chin in her hand and turned his head to kiss him, rubbing her thumb across his cheek.</p><p>“I don’t mind the beard,” she told him. “It makes you look like you’re on the run.”</p><p>“Funny that,” he grinned. “Aren’t we on some international Most Wanted lists now?”</p><p>Natasha smiled too. “Hopefully. Last time that happened to me it didn’t turn out so bad.”</p><p>Clint took her hand again and led her around the mall, and they spent the next few hours looking inside every store like they had all the time in the world. They bought Christmas lights to string along the porch and all the groceries they needed to make eggnog, then picked out cheap, silly gifts for each other. Natasha even bought a pair of Captain America briefs for Coulson, and it made her laugh so hard that they had to spend an extra five minutes in the store just so that she could compose herself.</p><p>The drive home was quiet. Clint ate his third hotdog of the day and Natasha nibbled on a chocolate dipped pretzel, watching the scenery pass by out the window.  He couldn’t imagine where they would go from here, but he wasn’t as nervous as he once might have been. If SHIELD was going to rebuild then he didn’t know if he would join the effort or if Natasha would want to stick closer to Rogers and Stark. Retirement and whatever that included suddenly didn’t seem so far away.</p><p>“What happens now?” Natasha asked softly, as if she knew what he was thinking.</p><p>Clint shrugged. “Guess we need to figure out where we stand, who we can trust. There’ll probably be more hearings, right? Laying low might be our best option.”</p><p>“I don’t mind that idea,” she said. “I’ve been a lot of people over the years. I think it might be nice to let Natasha stay for a while.”</p><p>“I like that idea, too.” He took his attention off the road to look at her for a moment, eyes softening as he watched her run her finger over the window, chasing snowflakes. “We have a farm, you know. We can stay there for as long as we like.”</p><p>“Married with a farm,” Natasha teased, rolling her head around to meet his gaze. “I never could have imagined it.”</p><p>“Good thing you don’t have to,” Clint said. The farm came into view and he parked the truck beside the barn, killing the engine and sitting in the remaining warmth from the heater. “My mum told me when I was a kid that home wasn’t a place. I think she was right.”</p><p>“She sounds like a smart woman,” Natasha said softly. “I never miss home, only you.”</p><p>“Were you okay, with Rogers?” Clint asked. He clenched his jaw and tried to keep the fear out of his voice, even though it bled from every nerve in his body. “He told me you were shot.”</p><p>Natasha carefully pulled her jacket and shirt aside, revealing the still pink scar on her shoulder. “Lost so much blood I thought I could see you in the back of the van. They took care of me, Clint. It made me realise that a bullet wound shouldn’t be a normal injury for me.”</p><p>“Could’ve told you that for free.” Clint let out a breath and gingerly touched the scarred flesh, watching the steady rise and fall of her chest. “You know it wouldn’t be so crazy, right?”</p><p>There was a steady stream of smoke coming from the chimney, and Clint could see that Coulson had turned the porch light on for them. Natasha cast her eyes over the house, too, and he knew that she was thinking what he was. That it would be easy, now, without the obligations of SHIELD hanging over their heads. That it would be easy to just create a life for themselves that they had never had the luxury of dreaming of before.</p><p>It wasn’t as simple as just saying that they could stop, and Clint knew that. There were conversations they still needed to have and plans that still needed to be made. He wasn’t ready to hang up his bow completely, and he knew that Natasha wouldn’t be able to sit still for long either, but there were habits he was willing to break now. A life without the security they were used to didn’t seem as frightening as it would have years ago.</p><p>Natasha smiled, fingers curling around the bag of decorations they had bought at the mall; the bag that held the Christmas lights and the eggnog ingredients and the hand-painted snowman rattle that they had bet their future on. He could hear it inside the bag as she moved, leaning across the console to kiss him softly.</p><p>“Right. It wouldn’t be crazy at all.”</p><p> </p><p>Later that night Clint sat beside Coulson on the couch, watching the end credits of Love, Actually roll across the TV screen. Natasha slept with her head on his shoulder, hand still loosely clasping her fifth cup of eggnog. The Christmas lights that they had put up that afternoon flashed through the window, illuminating the snowmen they had constructed in the front yard. The fire was warm, and Clint didn’t think of anything other than the love that built in his chest and the heavy weight by his side.</p><p>“You have to go back to your new team soon, don’t you?” He asked Coulson softly. “It feels like you stayed longer than you thought you would.”</p><p>“I like my new team,” Coulson said carefully, then lifted a shoulder. “I like my old team just as much, though.”</p><p>Clint laughed. “We’re not that easily replaceable, sir. Maybe one day you’ll let us meet them. You know, show ‘em the ropes.”</p><p>“Maybe,” Coulson agreed. “Do you have any idea where you’re going from here?”</p><p>“Might head back to New York next year, see what Stark and Rogers are doing.” Clint gently ran his fingers through Natasha’s hair, disentangling the small knots he found. “Tash isn’t quite ready to hang up the batons just yet, but. We might… I don’t know if it’s stupid or not, but we were thinking of having a kid.”</p><p>Coulson raised an eyebrow. “If I had heard you say that ten years ago I would have checked you into Medical.”</p><p>“Guess I’m getting old or something,” Clint said. “She just makes me think that there might be something more to life than what we’ve been doing, you know?”</p><p>“I don’t think it’s stupid at all,” Coulson said. “I’m proud of you two.”</p><p>“Thanks,” Clint whispered. He swallowed thickly, distracting himself with Natasha’s hair before he got too worked up. “When are you leaving?”</p><p>“In the morning,” Coulson answered. “Fury made me Director. I’ve already been gone for too long.”</p><p>“As long as we can say goodbye. Natasha would hunt you down if you just left again.”</p><p>“I wouldn’t blame her,” Coulson laughed. He stood and stretched, looking for a moment infinitely older than Clint ever remembered seeing him before. It had been hard for them, but it had probably been harder for <em>him </em>to realise that he had a second chance at life now. “Things will work out, Clint. SHIELD wasn’t the world.”</p><p>“I know,” he said. “The world’s a whole lot bigger than even I knew.”</p><p>Natasha’s fingers loosened and the eggnog spilt onto the rug, but Clint figured that was a problem for the morning. He pulled her tighter against his side and relaxed himself, closing his eyes and feeling the warmth of the fire caress his eyelids. He heard Coulson move towards the staircase, then listened as he paused at the bottom, the floorboard creaking slightly as he shifted his weight. Clint waited, content. The world was big. There was so much more for him to learn.</p><p>Finally, Coulson spoke, and Clint heard the words float down and into the living room, where they held him tight and safe, melting all of his doubts away like the snow on the windowsills.</p><p>“You’ll make a great father, Clint. I’d bet my life on it.”</p><p> </p>
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<a name="section0011"><h2>11. 2015</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>cheree i'm asleep ❤️</p><p>this is the 2nd last chapter!! this fic has been one hell of a ride and i'm ngl, i'll be a lil sad to see her go. thank you sm to everyone who has stuck with this fic and found some joy in christmas (ignore chapter 7) anyway, i know nothing about adoption and made some things up but it's fine i'm allowed. i hope you enjoy this!! </p><p>(it's a little bit shorter than usual bc my brain is switching off early so: goodnight)</p><p>((unless ur cheree in which case: i'm already asleep ❤️))</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
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    <strong>2015</strong>
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</blockquote><p> </p><p>Clint shuffled his way through customs behind a family of four, waiting patiently as they tried to wrangle the children through the metal detector. He brushed off the parent’s apology and gathered his own things quickly, keeping his head down out of instinct as he manoeuvred around the hundreds of people waiting to catch their own flights. Flying out of the country three days before Christmas hadn’t been part of the plan, but someone had had to stop Rogers and Stark from killing each other and Natasha hadn’t been around this time.</p><p>He planned on going straight to his terminal to wait for the flight to board, but a small giftshop caught his eye as he passed through the food court. He almost kept walking until he saw a fluffy brown rabbit toy hanging in the window, and there was something about its soft face that had him marching right up to it and taking it off the stand, fingers rubbing a velvety ear carefully. It didn’t take much to convince him; he took the rabbit to the counter and paid, practising his rusty Polish in his head as he went.</p><p>Rabbit secured, Clint headed back towards his terminal with a smile on his face that felt like it would never fade. There were only sixteen hours between him and Natasha, sixteen short hours between him and the beginning of his new life. The past month without her had felt even longer than the year they had not spoken to each other, though he thought it was only because the suspense was eating him alive. Stark had offered his private jet and now Clint was regretting saying no. He could be in Krakow already if he had just swallowed his pride.</p><p>He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket, pulling it out to see Natasha’s name flash across the screen. He answered still smiling, even though it was too early for her to be calling him yet. “Hey Tash. How are you?”</p><p>“Fine,” she replied. There was a tightness to her voice that made him falter just slightly. “Where are you?”</p><p>“Airport,” he answered, smile slipping from his face. “Flights at like, 4am. It’s early for you too, right?”</p><p>“Right,” she echoed. “You should have taken the jet.”</p><p>Clint rolled his eyes even though she couldn’t see him. “I know, but Stark was so <em>smug </em>about it. It’s fine, I’ll be there before you know it. Actually, you know – wait until you see this, you’re going to <em>love it</em>. I found a rabbit toy.”</p><p>“Clint,” Natasha said, but he didn’t hear her properly. He struggled to pull the rabbit from the plastic bag, wanting to snap a photo of it so that she could see just how cute it was. “<em>Clint</em>.”</p><p>“Hmm?” he hummed. He quickly brought his phone away from his ear to take the picture, then tried to hastily stuff the rabbit back in. “Okay, the picture should come through. It reminds me of the book, you know. I think he’ll love it.”</p><p>“Clint,” she said, firmer, and he stopped walking. “It fell through.”</p><p>Clint blinked. “What?”</p><p>“The…” she began, and he heard her swallow thickly, voice trembling when she spoke again. “It fell through. The birth mother changed her mind.”</p><p>“She can’t do that,” Clint said. His heart pounded painfully against his ribs, chest constricting. The world pinpricked until all he could see was the ground in front of him, until all he could hear were her shaking breaths on the phone. “She can't… she can't <em>change her mind</em>.”</p><p>“She’s clean now,” Natasha said softly. “She still has the right. We haven’t… he’s not ours yet, Clint.”</p><p>“He might as well be,” he snapped, suddenly angry. He tried to clear his head of the static that was building, but it was easier to let it overtake him. “We bought a crib. We… we get to take him home next week.”</p><p>“No, we don’t,” Natasha told him. “Anyway, I was just calling to tell you not to worry about coming anymore.”</p><p>“What do you mean?”</p><p>Natasha’s voice was hollow when she spoke again. “You don’t need to come. It will be a waste of time for you. I’ll change my flight and be back tomorrow, hopefully.”</p><p>“Natasha,” he said carefully, feeling the fight leave him in a second. “I’m still coming. We have the week. I’m not leaving you there.”</p><p>He almost expected Natasha to fight him on it. He was ready for it, ready with arguments of his own on his tongue; he would tell her that he couldn’t let her stay there by herself, even if it was only for another day, that he couldn’t cancel his flight and expect her to come home and for everything to be fine again. They had a week to themselves, now, a week without the little boy that they had spent the last year falling in love with. It hurt, and he couldn’t let her hurt alone.</p><p>“Okay,” she whispered instead. He could hear the tears despite not being able to see them and felt his own tears burn the backs of his eyes. “I’ll wait.”</p><p>“It’s not fair,” he said just as softly. “Fuck, Tasha. I’m so sorry.”</p><p>“I’m sorry too,” she said. “I’ll see you soon. Guess we won't need the rabbit now.”</p><p>Clint swallowed his broken heart and felt it settle in the pit of his stomach. “They might… they might let me return it. Maybe I should do that.”</p><p>Someone bumped into him from behind but Clint barely noticed. He stared straight ahead, the plastic bag with the soft brown rabbit suddenly feeling like lead in his hand. His feet stuck, and for a moment he considered just staying there forever. SHIELD missions had been Hell, but he would take blood and bullet wounds any day over the crushing pain he felt in his chest. It wasn’t <em>fair</em>. He wanted to scream.</p><p>“Okay,” Natasha murmured. “Bye.”</p><p>He didn’t want her to hang up and leave him floating aimlessly. “Bye, Tash.”</p><p>The dial tone sounded in his ear and he briefly considered throwing the phone away. Instead he pocketed it, swung the plastic bag around in his hand and continued on his way to the terminal like his spine wasn’t crumbling under the weight of his disappointment. He had learnt to put on an act, to keep his expression neutral even as his world fell apart around him, and he used it now like an armour.</p><p>When he reached the terminal and handed his passport over, he smiled at the flight attendant and thanked her before heading down the passageway. Inside, he cried.</p><p> </p><p>Natasha greeted him in the hotel foyer with red-rimmed eyes. He touched her cheek gently, finger trailing down until he could tilt her head to meet his gaze. Her lips twitched but she didn’t smile. He didn’t think she had it in her.</p><p>The hotel room was dimly lit, the curtains drawn against the dark night sky. She had created a nest out of blankets on the bed, though she seemed hesitant to move too far into the room. There was a tiny suitcase packed by the door, half-shoved out of sight like an afterthought.</p><p>“Cosy,” he said, voice gruff from disuse. He dropped his own backpack by the mini fridge and gestured to the bed. “That’s one way to keep out the cold. It was cold on the flight, actually. I had a blanket but you know what it’s like in economy, with all the people and the – ”</p><p>“Clint,” Natasha interrupted, lower lip trembling. She wrapped her arms around herself and watched him warily. “I’m so sorry.”</p><p>“Not your fault,” he said immediately. “God, Tasha. It’s not your fault his mother… It’s not her fault either.”</p><p>“I know,” she whispered. “But we were so close.”</p><p>Clint held his arms open and she crossed the room to him, head pressing into his chest hard enough to bruise. He wrapped her up, felt himself breathe for the first time since the airport. Her hair was soft and longer, now, and he felt the ends of it brushing his forearm. She had poured her soul into the tiny baby they had first met ten months ago, and now he had been taken away again; taken before they had even really been given the chance to know him. They had called him their son. Clint held her like it might make it better.</p><p>Deciding to adopt had been borne from a mission in the Ukraine that had given Natasha nightmares for weeks. They had headed home afterwards with no real purpose, perhaps knowing then that they couldn’t keep doing what they had been. She had forced Stark to keep tabs on the children they had rescued, and then it had spiralled, as most things did, until they were flying to Poland instead to meet a little boy that had been surrendered by his mother.</p><p>His name was Feliks. Clint had fallen in love first, sometime between Feliks blinking at him and reaching out to grip onto his finger. He had been four months old when they met him, and submitting the application had been the easiest decision of Clint’s life so far. They had set up a room at the farm and Natasha had fallen in love then, on the floor of the nursery surrounded by photos of the baby they would get to take home in time for Christmas. And they had known that there was still the possibility that it wouldn’t work out, but Clint hadn’t allowed himself to think it. Not when Feliks was there and <em>real</em>.</p><p>“Did they say why?” Clint asked eventually.</p><p>Natasha nodded. “They’ve been working with his mother for months, to help her get better. Her family is… Does it matter?”</p><p>“No,” Clint said immediately. He hated hearing her voice so defeated. “It’s okay. Hey. I missed you.”</p><p>“I missed you too,” she said to him, then leant up to kiss him softly. “Come to bed?”</p><p>Clint kicked his shoes off and crawled into the nest behind her, snuggling down beneath the canopy she had made from the spare sheets. The world was infinitely quieter and for the first time since her phone call he felt tears spill down his cheeks and collect in her hair. She swung her arm over his waist and pinned him to her, hand stroking his lower back where his shirt had ridden up, and he cried for everything they had lost in the span of 24 hours.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” she whispered. Her body trembled against him but her eyes remained dry, like her grief had hollowed her out. “I’m so sorry.”</p><p>“I’m sorry too,” he choked. “<em>Tasha</em>. I should have been here.”</p><p>“No.” She pulled the blanket up around them until he could only see her eyes peeking out at him. He would never forget the look in them, the utter despair that swam in her green orbs. “Don’t. You’re here now and I love you. We’ll… there’ll be another chance. Right?”</p><p>Her voice sounded like hope. He locked it away in the part of his soul that housed Feliks, because he knew that they would need it. They would need it to try again, whenever that may be. It would take time to move on, and when they did it would still hurt, he was sure of it. It might take months to be matched again; they would have to take down the nursery, donate the clothes, pack the books away that Natasha had so eagerly picked out herself. His fingers itched and he hauled himself out of the cacoon of safety she had created.</p><p>Her face fell apart when he handed her the rabbit from his bag. She clutched it to her chest and heaved with silent sobs, and Clint lay beside her again staring at the sheet above his head. They were so close to the baby that was supposed to be <em>theirs</em>, and yet they had never been further apart. Clint closed his eyes and dreamt of nothing.</p><p> </p><p>The orphanage looked far more imposing than it had the first time they had visited, but Natasha still marched them through the front door like none of it bothered her. She hadn’t slept at all the night before, instead laying in the dark with the rabbit and waking him up sporadically when she eventually started to cry again. Looking at her now though, he could hardly tell that she was the same woman that had asked him what they had done wrong to lose their baby.</p><p>She had insisted on bringing the tiny suitcase for Feliks, though. Clint held it carefully in one hand as he followed her and one of the nurses down the hall, passing all kinds of children as they went. He left Natasha to do the speaking, partly because she had spent the last month and a half liaising with the woman but mainly because his Polish just wasn’t that good. Besides, it gave her a task to keep her mind busy. He didn’t want her to be sad anymore.</p><p>“Clint,” he heard Natasha say, and he hurried to catch up with her. She smiled when he stopped beside her, though it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Maja said we can see him, if we like.”</p><p>Clint swallowed. “What do you think?”</p><p>“My deepest apologies of you, Mr Barton,” Maja said, her voice heavily accented. “I understand is must be very difficult, especially to come here. His mother is… how you say…?”</p><p>“Influential,” Natasha said softly. “We’re glad she got the help she needed.”</p><p>Maja frowned. “Is still bad for you. And I am sorry. I like you and I want you to have baby.”</p><p>“Uh, thanks,” Clint said, awkwardly holding the suitcase out to her. “We bought this for him, if you could… If you could give it to his mum, please.”</p><p>“<em>Tak</em>,” Maja smiled. “Go through door and find him.”</p><p>Natasha thread her fingers through his as they entered the room where Feliks slept with the other babies. Clint spotted him straight away, sitting up in his crib with his fists stuck between the bars. His hair was dark and hung in his eyes, but he still smiled and squealed when he recognised Natasha. Clint didn’t want to think about how much time she had spent in this very room over the last month; the expression on her face told him all he needed to know.</p><p>“<em>Dzien dobry</em>, Feliks,” Natasha said brightly, the Polish flowing effortlessly from her tongue. “Look who I brought with me.”</p><p>“<em>Dzien dobry</em>,” Clint echoed with more confidence than he felt. They crouched beside the crib and each took one of his hands, and Clint was suddenly struck with how much bigger he was from the first time that he had seen him. “We’re here to say goodbye.”</p><p>Natasha smiled sadly. “Looks like your real mama is going to take care of you. That’s good, even if it doesn’t feel like it.”</p><p>“We’re not going to stop thinking about you,” Clint whispered. “Or loving you. You’re gonna do big things, kiddo.”</p><p>Feliks laughed, dropping Natasha’s hand to stretch his tiny fingers out towards the arrow necklace that hung against her throat. She shuffled closer until he could grasp the chain and yank on it, smiling all the while with no way to know the way his actions felt like a punch to the gut. A single silvery tear tracked down Natasha’s face, and then she disentangled herself and stood, features smoothing to hide the pain.</p><p>“Bye Feliks,” she said softly, waving.</p><p>Clint drew in a shaky breath and let the little boy’s hand go, standing beside her. “Bye buddy. Have a good life.”</p><p>“Really?” Natasha teased. She knocked her shoulder against his and he was relieved to see that the smile on her face was a little lighter than it had been yesterday. “He’s a baby.”</p><p>“What else am I supposed to say?” Clint said, smiling too. “Shoot straight? Little inappropriate, Tasha.”</p><p>“I think it’s great life advice,” she said. “Shooting straight’s the only way to get the job done.”</p><p>“Well, shoot straight then, Feliks,” Clint told the baby, but he was already preoccupied with a toy car. “We’ll get another chance one day.”</p><p>“I know,” Natasha replied. “It might take time to…”</p><p>“Of course,” he agreed, wrapping his arm around her waist as they slowly walked away. “However long it takes, it’ll work out. Right?”</p><p>“Right,” she hummed. “I don’t want to look back.”</p><p>“You don’t have to. We don’t have to do anything today if we don’t want to.”</p><p>It was Christmas Eve, and the orphanage had decorated the walls with the children’s artwork. There were drawings of Santa and elves, and little paper snowflakes much like the ones Natasha had made for their tree in Coulson’s office. There was a sprig of mistletoe hanging in the doorway, and she stopped him underneath it, leaning up on tiptoes to press her lips to his cheek.</p><p>“For luck,” she told him.</p><p>Clint let out a breath. It felt a little like a prayer.</p><p> </p><p>They wandered aimlessly around Krakow for hours, looking at every stall in the Christmas market and picking up a few new ornaments to add to their collection at home. Snowflakes caught in Natasha’s hair and Clint thought she had never looked more beautiful than she did then, with her matching scarf and beanie and her eyes lit with joy as she sipped at warm cider. He bought her an old book written in Polish just because she said the pages smelt good, and they ate dinner huddled beside the Town Hall Tower, watching the crowds pass by.</p><p>He could hear Christmas carols from somewhere within the market, the tune sounding something like Silent Night. He brushed his hands off on his pants and gave Natasha a mischievous look, waggling his eyebrows at her. She frowned but accepted his offered hand, unable to stop the burst of laughter that escaped her lips as he pulled her forward into his arms.</p><p>“What’s this?” she asked as he put his hands on her waist.</p><p>“Slow dancing to Christmas music,” he whispered. She draped her arms around his neck, fingers playing with the hair at the nape of his neck, and he swayed them carefully side-to-side. “Can you hear the carols?”</p><p>Natasha rested her head on his chest. “All I can hear is your heart.”</p><p>“Oh yea?” he asked. “What’s it sound like?”</p><p>“Like gold. Like your kisses in the morning. Like something that hasn’t happened yet.”</p><p>“Sounds complicated,” he murmured. “Do you want me to sing?”</p><p>Natasha nodded, and he started to sing Silent Night, straining to hear the lyrics. It didn’t matter that he was off beat in the end, because the crowd only grew and the music was drowned out as fireworks lit up the night sky. Clint still sung, following Silent Night by Feliz Navidad, his tongue a little heavy around the words. Natasha kept her head on his chest and they held each other in the middle of Old Town, swaying and breathing and healing together.</p><p>They didn’t speak when they stopped, instead just walking in unison like they were summoned by the same unknown force, and they ended up under a streetlight outside of their hotel. The fireworks continued behind them but nothing could shine as brightly as Natasha when she smiled at him, and he kissed her there, hands in her hair and body against hers; kissed her like the world would end or they would float away or it was the first time all over again.</p><p>“How’s Rogers and Stark?” Natasha asked, pulling away slightly.</p><p>Clint groaned. “You’re really asking me about them right now?”</p><p>“I don’t know,” she laughed. “I should have asked you yesterday.”</p><p>“We had other things on our mind yesterday,” Clint said. He kissed the side of her mouth, then trailed his lips down her neck. “Just like we have other things on our mind <em>now</em>.”</p><p>“What if I told you I wanted to see the dragon?” Natasha murmured. “You know there’s a story about a dragon. It’s famous.”</p><p>“A famous dragon?” he said. “Okay. You’ve got my attention.”</p><p>Natasha spun out of his arms and began walking away from him backwards, breath fogging out into the cold air. Clint kicked some snow at her and she laughed, bending down to scoop up a handful that she could toss at his face. He felt it stick to his cheeks, icy cold; he lunged at her and she dodged him, and then they were racing down the street, slipping on the snow as they ran around people and bikes. Clint’s fingers brushed her jacket and they fell, tumbling into the white powder.</p><p>“You suck,” Natasha whined, wriggling in the snow. She brought a hand up to try and dust her hair off, then gave up and fell backwards. “Now I’m cold.”</p><p>“Tell me about the dragon,” Clint said, flopping down beside her. He didn’t care that they were on the side of the road, surrounded by people who were celebrating Christmas Eve. He grabbed her hand and held on like his life depended on it. “I wanna know now.”</p><p>“It’s called the Wawel dragon,” Natasha said softly. “And every week the villagers would have to sacrifice cows, or else the dragon would eat them instead.”</p><p>“Fair,” Clint interrupted, wincing as she elbowed his side. “<em>Ow</em>.”</p><p>“One day the king called on his two sons to kill the dragon, but they couldn’t defeat him in battle,” she continued. “So they stuffed a cow carcass with sulphur and burnt the dragon inside out. But the eldest son killed his younger brother too, so that he could be honoured for the slaying. When they found out they exiled him and named the city in recognition of the innocent son, Krakus.”</p><p>Clint stared at the stars, not wanting her story to end. “So when you said the dragon was famous… He was famous for <em>dying</em>?”</p><p>Natasha huffed. “The point is that Krakus didn’t deserve to die, and they knew that. So they honoured him. I think it’s sweet.”</p><p>Clint couldn’t help but think of Coulson, who didn’t deserve to die either. Even though he was actually alive now, he shouldn’t have been there; he shouldn’t have been anywhere near Loki and his sceptre and the shit show that had been New York, and Clint had thought about it, back then. Thought about maybe having a son one day and naming him after the man that had changed his life.</p><p>“It is,” Clint said softly. The snow had soaked his clothes through and he couldn’t stop the shudder that ran through his body. “It still doesn’t feel real. We should be with Feliks right now, getting ready for Christmas tomorrow.”</p><p>“How do you mourn someone when they’re still alive?” Natasha asked softly. “I feel empty. I never thought I’d be a mother and now that I want it I might not have the chance.”</p><p>“We’ll have plenty of chances,” he assured her, squeezing her cold fingers. “If we can't adopt we can always foster. And it won't be long until Pepper and Tony start popping them out. Aunty Natasha can give them candy.”</p><p>“Uncle Clint can teach them to swing from the rafters,” she said. “That doesn’t sound so bad. Besides, I have you.”</p><p>“And I have you,” he agreed. “Did you ever think we would get here?”</p><p>The night sky was endless, the stars reflected in Natasha’s eyes. He watched one fly across the deep navy above them and made a wish that took a piece of his heart with it. The noise around them faded and the world pinpricked around her. He let the warmth from her shoulder against his seep into his bones.</p><p>“No,” she admitted after a moment. “I never thought I would leave SHIELD. I had resigned myself to that room.”</p><p>Clint frowned at the memory. “I shouldn’t have left you on your own.”</p><p>“I had Coulson,” Natasha replied, twisting to face him. “Besides, if I had you then it might not have changed anything. The world was black and white until you took me home.”</p><p>She began to move, arms and legs sliding through the snow until Clint clicked on and could move with her. it was uncomfortable and wet, but when she pulled him to his feet with a flourish and he saw the two snow angels they had made it all faded into nothing. Hands entwined, they left their imprint behind and made the slow trek back to the hotel, and Clint understood what she meant.</p><p>The world had been black and white for him, too.</p><p> </p><p>Christmas day felt a little different than usual. They kept themselves busy, ignoring the pain in their hearts for what could have been and instead spent the day outside of the hotel. They attended a church service in the morning, then ate a quiet brunch in the park while Natasha organised their new flights for the next day. Clint spoke to Maria briefly, if only so she would pass on the message to the rest of the team for them. He didn’t have the energy to deal with anyone else’s pity.</p><p>The afternoon was spent throwing axes at a target in a club, with Clint’s aim so perfect that they put his photo on their wall. Natasha let him rub it in on the condition that they could stop for gelato, and he spent a solid half hour waiting for her to decide what flavour she wanted. They stopped at the orphanage and dropped off some toys, sneaking in and out before Maja could notice them. If Feliks was still there they didn’t ask, and it wasn’t that they didn’t care; Clint thought he would never <em>stop </em>caring, but the little boy was with his mother and they could only accept what had happened.</p><p>Natasha requested Home Alone to watch with dinner, and they sat in the nest they still hadn’t taken down, eating pierogi with their fingers. It was a different Christmas than what they were used to but it still felt familiar. He thought it had something to do with her body beside his, legs stretched out so their ankles were touching, her head on his shoulder as she drifted and dreamed.</p><p>“Christmas is a time of giving,” she mumbled. “Buy me North Korea.”</p><p>Clint laughed and absently rubbed her arm, watching Kevin set another trap on the screen. “I can't afford North Korea.”</p><p>“Santa has no right to be that jolly,” she said seriously. “Hey Clint?”</p><p>“Yea?” he asked, even though she was only sleep-talking.</p><p>“I should tell you I love you.”</p><p>“I love you too,” he replied with a kiss to her temple. “Merry Christmas.”</p><p>She reached up and rubbed her eyes, then squinted at him. “Did you say something?”</p><p>“Nothing,” he told her. “Just Merry Christmas.”</p><p>“Merry Christmas,” she echoed. “What a fuck up of a week, huh.”</p><p>“It’s almost unbelievable,” he said. He switched the TV off and set the remote aside, wiggling beneath the covers. “We’re gonna have a lot of free time on the farm.”</p><p>“Hmmm,” Natasha hummed, almost asleep again. “You can clean the barn.”</p><p>“I think you mean <em>we </em>can clean the barn,” he corrected. Her head fell against him again and he sighed, smiling at how peaceful she was. “Night love.”</p><p>When Clint woke up the next morning, Natasha had already packed their bags. She sat at the tiny table with her phone against her ear, frowning at a spot on the wall. Clint yawned and stretched, taking his time to wake up properly. Their flight wouldn’t leave for another few hours, so he figured he was okay to take his time.</p><p>Natasha said something in Polish that he was too tired to understand, then clicked her fingers at him. “Wake up.”</p><p>“I am,” he moaned, scratching his face. “Settle down, woman.”</p><p>“It’s Maja,” she whispered, covering the receiver of the phone. “She wants to talk to us.”</p><p>Clint felt his stomach drop, and then something else, something that made his heart beat a little faster. “About Feliks?”</p><p>Natasha made a gesture like she didn’t know and then put the phone back to her ear, listening intently to whatever Maja was saying. Clint waited impatiently, feeling fear gnaw at him until he couldn’t sit still any longer. He got up and went to the bathroom, then pulled a jumper on and leant against the wall, watching Natasha’s face intently for any signs of distress.</p><p>Her eyes remained fixed to the wall, her forehead crinkled as she answered some of Maja’s questions carefully. He made out some of the words and tried to string them together to form a sentence, but it didn’t make a lot of sense. She brought the phone away from her ear again and he perked up, waiting to hear what she had to say.</p><p>“She has…” Natasha swallowed, looking a little afraid. “She said she was glad that we hadn’t left yet. There’s something she wants to ask us. I’m not…”</p><p>“Ask us what?” Clint whispered. He wanted to cross over and hold her hand but his feet felt like they had been glued to the floor. “Tash?”</p><p>“I’m scared,” she whispered. “I don’t… I don’t know what to do.”</p><p>“It’s okay,” he said. “I’m right here. Put her on speaker and we can… we can find out together.”</p><p>Natasha nodded and laid the phone out on the table, only hesitating for a second before she hit speaker. The room was immediately filled with the sounds of children laughing and playing, and the high-pitched cry of a baby in the background. He could imagine Maja standing in the middle of the chaos, trying to find a moment of peace to call them.</p><p>“Clint’s here, Maja,” Natasha said in English.</p><p>His feet finally listened to him, and he crossed the room to sit opposite her. “Hey Maja.”</p><p>“Hello,” she said breathlessly. “I am glad to catch you. I am thinking your plane is gone.”</p><p>“Not yet,” Clint laughed. “What can we help you with?”</p><p>“I have to ask or I will not forgive,” she said in a rush, her accent thick and excited. “There is, um… <em>możliwość</em>. Of new baby.”</p><p>Clint didn’t understand the Polish, but he knew what she was asking. Natasha glanced at him, her eyes wide and afraid, but there was something else hidden in the depths of her gaze; something that he had seen before, on a mountain, on a beach in Australia, on a couch in Coulson’s office and beneath the mistletoe more times than he could count. Something that looked a lot like hope.</p><p>“We hadn’t considered –“ he started to say, then cleared his throat. “We hadn’t really thought about trying again so soon.”</p><p>“Is hard but I think is good,” Maja assured them. “I think is right for you. I want you straight away. Maybe I tell you?”</p><p>He read on Natasha’s face her willingness to at least try, and even though it <em>was </em>sooner than they had thought he nodded, trusting her. He would always trust her, and he had wanted this so badly that it had left him winded. Natasha was his heart, his <em>home</em>, and he wanted to share that love. He could count on one hand his wants, and it included Natasha and a child; little feet on the floorboards with her following behind.</p><p>So when Natasha looked at him like that, afraid and hopeful and so utterly excited, he knew what their answer would be. He would follow her anywhere. She didn’t have to ask with him.</p><p>“Okay,” she said, smile spreading across her face.</p><p>He smiled, too. “Okay.”</p><p>“Okay,” Maja said. “She is new baby, little girl. And first thing I tell you is she was born on Christmas…”   </p>
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<a name="section0012"><h2>12. 2016</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>tis finally the end and can i just say thank god bc when i say this fic took a lot out of me i am NOT joking. anyway, here's chapter 12, not quite what i intended but the best i can do atm ✨ i hope you enjoy the conclusion to twelve christmases with clint and nat and thank you so so much for all the support, i appreciate it so much!! it really has been a wild ride and i simply have no christmas spirit left in me lmao</p><p>thank u to cheree for putting up with all of the breakdowns over this fic. good things to come ✨</p><p>on that note, enjoy, and thank you from the bottom of my heart ❤️</p><p>(ps: elke is pronounced el-kah)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
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    <strong>2016</strong>
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</blockquote><p> </p><p>Being tucked away from the world in one of the highest rooms in Avengers Tower would usually make Clint feel comfortable enough to let his guard down. He had spent hours sitting in this very living room, watching movies with Natasha or reading over mission reports before SHIELD had ultimately ceased to exist, and he had always been at ease. Peaceful, even. But despite how much he loved the view, there was something about his daughter pressing her hands against the floor to ceiling windows that had his heart leaping into his throat.</p><p>“She isn’t going to fall,” Natasha assured him.</p><p>He rolled his eyes. “I know that.”</p><p>Clint felt the couch dip beside him but didn’t look away from the window. Natasha curled into him, pressing her front against his back and rubbing the bottom of his chin with her fingers. It felt nice, and he knew she was just trying to recapture his attention before he gave himself a stress-induced heart attack, but the Tower was <em>high</em>. He had never realised just how high until he was faced with the image of his baby suspended over the city skyline.</p><p>“Relax, daddy,” Natasha told him. “She can't go anywhere.”</p><p>Clint huffed. “But if the glass <em>broke</em> she would fall down. It makes my palms sweat.”</p><p>“She’s fine,” Natasha assured him again. She didn’t sound teasing or condescending, and not for the first time he was glad to have her on his side. They had both had their fair share of ridiculous fears over the last year and Clint was sure that there were plenty more to come. “Elke, where did your bunny go?”</p><p>At the sound of her name Elke turned around, losing balance and falling onto her bottom. She was nonplussed at the jolt it sent up her small body, instead screaming in response to Natasha’s question  and throwing her hands into the air. Clint snorted and watched as she crawled quickly over to them, pulling herself up by his leg. She was nothing if not determined, and he knew that it would only be a matter of time before she was walking and stressing him out even more.</p><p>“Bu,” she said to him seriously. Her tiny fists clenched around his pant legs and she bounced on the spot furiously. “Bu, bu.”</p><p>“I don’t know where you put your bunny,” Clint told her, lifting her from under her arms. She screamed as he settled her in his lap, wriggling to try and get down again. “Easy, E. Mama might look under the couch.”</p><p>Elke stopped squirming and turned her big blue eyes to Natasha, lower lip wobbling as she toed the edge of a tantrum. Their daughter was fierce and determined, a firecracker of a girl who knew exactly what she wanted and how to get it, and they were completely enamoured with her. Elke had the world in her eyes and the two of them in the palm of her hand, and Clint wouldn’t want it any other way.</p><p>She had been small, when they first met her; a tiny, new baby, with feathery hair and little hands that latched onto whatever was in sight. They had loved her instantly, so fiercely that Natasha had cried when they had to leave her at the orphanage overnight, but everything that happened after that was fate. They had signed their names and baby had become Elke Phil Barton-Romanoff, theirs and only theirs.   </p><p>The day they had brought her home it had snowed. Clint had taken the corners slowly, wary of ice on the road and the tiny new baby that was strapped into the car seat in the back. Natasha had sat next to her, one hand on the capsule as though it would offer more protection, and Elke had screamed her lungs out, displeased with not being held. They had been terrified then and they were still terrified now, but it was more than they had ever asked for. <em>She </em>was worth more than the sun.</p><p>Natasha reached under the couch and came up empty. “Sorry, <em>malyshka</em>. He’s not here.”</p><p>Elke’s face crumpled and Clint felt his heart break in tandem. The soft brown rabbit that he had bought at the airport last year had become an extension of Elke from the moment he gave it to her; wherever she went, the toy went with her, and losing it often resulted in the type of tantrum that could shake walls. If Elke wasn’t happy then the world knew in an instant, and as the first tears hit her rosy cheeks Clint quickly scrambled to prevent the impending storm.</p><p>“Maybe he’s in your bag?” Clint said, scooping Elke into the air and flying her above his head towards their packed bags by the kitchen counter. She laughed, deep-bellied and sweet as could be, and it was Clint’s favourite sound in the world. He zoomed her around the bench one more time before he stopped and started digging through her bag instead.</p><p>“I didn’t pack him,” Natasha called, watching them in amusement. “He wasn’t in her porta-cot.”</p><p>Clint rocked back on his heels and regarded Elke closely. “What have you done to your rabbit?”</p><p>She laughed and grabbed onto his nose, squeezing it in her tiny fist. Clint grinned at her softly, holding one hand against her back to keep her balanced on his knee. Elke’s own cheeky smile made him feel like his heart lived on the outside of his body, attached by an invisible string to her wrist so that his love followed her wherever she went. It felt a lot like screaming from the mountain with Natasha. It felt a lot like <em>home</em>.</p><p>“Dada,” Elke said. “Dada bu?”</p><p>“I don’t know where he is,” Clint whispered. He leant forward and rested his forehead against hers, and she let him for all of three seconds before she blew a raspberry in his face. “Walk over to mama and see what she thinks about this disaster.”</p><p>“He’ll be here somewhere,” Natasha said, rolling her eyes. “We’re spies, Clint. If we can’t find our daughter’s rabbit then we mustn't be very <em>good </em>spies.”</p><p>Clint blinked at her. “I’m the best spy, thank you very much.”</p><p>“Daddy’s full of shit,” Natasha snorted. Elke slid off Clint’s knee and pointed at Natasha, whining. “You just have to take a few steps, E. I’m right here.”</p><p>“Still the best spy,” Clint muttered as he helped Elke to her feet. She gripped his fingers tightly, wobbling as she tried to walk over to Natasha. Clint let her go for the last two steps but she fell, catching herself on her hands and knees and crawling the rest of the way. “God, that was a close one.”</p><p>“One day she’ll just start walking and we won't know what to do with ourselves,” Natasha said. She lifted Elke and stood, settling the baby on her hip. “We need to get ready.”</p><p>Clint groaned. “We don’t – ”</p><p>“We do. Stark is throwing the party early just so we don’t miss out.”</p><p>“How much easier would it be if we left tonight?” he argued, following her out of the living room and towards Elke’s makeshift bedroom. “E would sleep through half the trip. We’re probably gonna be hungover in the morning anyway, and then it’ll be <em>even later</em>.”</p><p>“Look at you, being all responsible,” Natasha teased. “You can just say that you hate parties, you know.”</p><p>“I hate parties,” Clint deadpanned.</p><p>Natasha laid Elke on the change mat and started to undress her before she inevitably wiggled away. Clint already had her party dress and tights ready to go, and they effortlessly swapped positions so that he could finish dressing her. It was still foreign, even after nearly a year, to know exactly where Natasha was in relation to their daughter and not their enemy.</p><p>“It’s Elke’s first Christmas party,” Natasha said. She held up the red bow that they had picked to pin in the baby’s hair and gave Clint her sweetest smile. “She’s going to be so cute.”</p><p>“She’s always cute,” Clint cooed, then reached over to block Elke’s ears. “I’m more concerned about Stark and Rogers beating the shit out of each other.”</p><p>Elke screamed. “Nnn, o dada.”</p><p>“Sorry, little Tink,” Clint said, removing his hands. He ignored the pointed look Natasha gave him and worked on getting Elke’s arms through her dress. “One day she’ll drop a curse word and <em>then </em>you’ll know.”</p><p>“Please,” Natasha muttered. “She won't do that to mama. Besides, Steve said he would come if Tony would let him in the door, and I told Tony I would steal his new suit if he didn’t, so.”</p><p>“I love a woman who negotiates,” Clint murmured, keeping one hand on Elke’s stomach as he turned to face Natasha, pulling her closer to him by her waist. “You know how good you would look in that suit?”</p><p>“Obviously,” Natasha murmured. She leant up on tiptoes to kiss him, wrapping both arms around his neck so that they were chest to chest. “You know how good I would look <em>out </em>of the suit?”</p><p>Clint moaned, free hand curling in her hair so he could tilt her head back and press his lips to the skin over her pulse. “We’re not going to the party.”</p><p>“We are,” Natasha whispered, then ducked out of his arms so quickly that his head was left spinning. She scooped Elke up and marched out of the room, hips swinging just a little more than they usually did. “Pick your mouth up off the floor, Barton. You’ll catch flies.”</p><p>He groaned and scrubbed at his face, but he couldn’t help the smile that bloomed from hearing Elke’s laugh echo down the hall. He grabbed her dirty diaper and clothes and dragged his feet after them, not in the mood to socialise. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see their friends, but they had a sixteen-hour trip ahead of them with Elke strapped in the back seat, and he needed all the rest he could get.</p><p>When he found them in the bathroom, with Elke sitting in a rare moment of stillness while Natasha pulled her thick brown hair into pigtails, he was reminded that it was all worth it. All of the sleepless nights, all of the temper tantrums, all of the moments of doubt that made him question every decision he had ever made; none of it mattered when his little girl looked at him like he hung the stars in the sky just for her.</p><p>“Look at you,” he whispered, and when Natasha and Elke both glanced at him, eyes alight with <em>something </em>that made his toes tingle, he knew he was the luckiest man alive. “I love you.”</p><p>Natasha smiled softly. “We love you too. Now go get ready. I heard there’s going to be eggnog.”</p><p> </p><p>Clint didn’t mind parties with Stark. The alcohol was too good to pass up, and watching Steve and Tony try and be polite towards each other was entertainment enough. He sat with Bruce and Pepper in what Natasha dubbed the <em>quiet corner</em>, sipping a beer that had some crazy exotic name he had no hope of remembering in the morning.</p><p>They had settled into the kind of silence that Clint enjoyed, content to watch everyone else make a fool of themselves. Tony had decked out the communal living room with fake snow and tinsel, and Clint had already been caught under the mistletoe by Natasha nine times. There was a huge Christmas tree in the corner with a present that looked like it might be for Elke, though Clint didn’t know how he was supposed to get a baby-sized Porsche back to the farm.</p><p>Natasha appeared before him with a glass of eggnog and a slice of cake. “You want some?”</p><p>“Nah,” he said, then frowned. “Where’s our kid?”</p><p>Natasha shrugged and dug into the cake with her fingers, looking around the room. Tony was by the bar, mixing something that looked downright poisonous for Thor, who was surprisingly not in the middle of a drinking competition with Maria. Sharon was talking to Steve and Clint felt his heartrate spike as he continued to look around at everyone, unable to find Elke amongst the crowd.</p><p>“Oh, there,” Natasha said, pointing with a chocolate covered finger to where Maria was twirling with Elke by the window. “E loves Maria.”</p><p>“Cause she gives her whatever she wants,” Clint laughed. “Who knew that Agent Hill would be the <em>sweet</em> Godmother?”</p><p>Maria turned to glare at him, though Clint didn’t know how she could have heard him. She made her way over with Elke sitting on her shoulders, and he rolled his eyes at the sight of his daughter; her twinkling eyes and cake covered cheeks told him that she was enjoying her first Christmas party much more than anyone else in the room. She had a handful of Maria’s hair in one hand and, miraculously, her soft brown bunny in the other.</p><p>“You found the rabbit!” Natasha cheered. “Where was he?”</p><p>“Don’t ask me how it got inside my shoe,” Maria said. “Your kid is sneaky.”</p><p>“Shh-py!” Elke declared, yanking on Maria’s hair. “Dada, bu!”</p><p>“You got your bunny,” Clint said, reaching out to tickle her foot. “That’s so exciting, E.”</p><p>Elke waved the bunny in the air violently, laughing as Maria fought to keep her balanced. Clint watched in amusement as the two seemed to wrestle with each other, both trying to get their own way, before Maria inevitably won and lifted Elke over the top of her head. The bunny fell out of Elke’s grip and onto the floor, and Clint made a dive for it before she could even think about crying.</p><p>“You’ll lose it for good,” Maria told her. “Buh-bye bunny.”</p><p>Elke stuck her tongue out at Maria, tiny eyebrows pulled down in a frown. “Nnn!”</p><p>“Yes,” Maria said, nodding her head solemnly. “And then we’ll all have to deal with a sad Elke. I’d rather be caught out in a Hydra bunker with only a nail file to save my life. Hydra is bad. We say no to Hydra, okay?”</p><p>Natasha rolled her eyes, and Elke gave Maria a stern look, clearly not enjoying what she was saying. Clint couldn’t help but laugh, because Maria was the last person he would have picked to ever want to spend time with his kid, and yet she was always the first one to put her hand up for babysitting when they needed five minutes to sleep. Elke and Maria clashed sometimes, both too hot-headed for their own good, but it was sweet to watch them together, even when they were screaming at each other.</p><p>Sharon appeared beside Maria, hand going to rest against her lower back as she smiled at Elke. “Have you stolen my girlfriend again Tinkerbell?”</p><p>“I’m a free woman,” Maria protested. “She’s cute but not as cute as you.”</p><p>“You make me melt,” Sharon deadpanned, and leant in for a kiss. “That was the sappiest thing I’ve ever heard, Hill.”</p><p>“So she <em>does </em>have a heart,” Clint teased. He winced as Maria kicked his ankle, then held his hands out to take Elke from her. “C’mon princess. You’re probably getting sleepy.”</p><p>“She looks like she just snorted pure crack,” Maria laughed. “What’s in the cake, Pepper?”</p><p>“A lot of sugar,” Pepper said sheepishly. “Sorry guys. I’m sure if she doesn’t sleep tonight she’ll at least sleep tomorrow.”</p><p>“Don’t underestimate her will,” Clint muttered. Elke leant back into him, sucking her thumb and watching the room lazily, and he pressed a soft kiss to the top of her head. “She’s just like Tash. Too stubborn.”</p><p>“Am not,” Natasha argued. “<em>You’re </em>the stubborn one. How many times have you refused to finish cleaning your guns because I said you missed a spot?”</p><p>“Like once,’ Clint said, then waved her off. “Whatever. So Elke got her stubbornness from both of us.”</p><p>“Who’d she get the tantrums from?” Maria asked, and Sharon snorted. “God knows Tinkerbell needs her attention.”</p><p>Clint didn’t really remember when Elke had started her tantrum phase; if he had to guess, it was sometime around the time when she had first started standing, and it hadn’t seemed to stop since then. They were nonplussed by it, because they could understand how frustrating it would be to be Elke, unable to communicate what she wanted when she wanted. They spent so much time guessing and gesturing vaguely that a scream here or there was welcome.</p><p>She was headstrong and loud, but she was also their little girl, and she was sweet and kind smart, too. She liked dancing and mashed potatoes and flowers, and she didn’t like pumpkin or her highchair or having her little nails clipped. She liked to feel things with her tiny fingers and rub those things on her face, but she was still perfection even when she was sticky and dirty and cranky. Whenever she smiled he was blinded by the beauty of her .</p><p>“It’s just Elke,” he said eventually, feeling her breaths against his chest. “She just wants to be known.”</p><p>Natasha smiled at him, her eyes softening as she took in the sight of them. Clint knew how she felt, because he had spent hours just watching her and Elke together, catching them in little moments of peace; like making pancakes, or digging in the garden, or lying in bed together, sleeping in well past the time that Natasha would usually wake up. She didn’t sleepwalk when Elke was snuggled against her chest.</p><p>“Mama,” Elke mumbled from around her thumb, holding her arm out towards Natasha. She was a dead-weight against Clint, barely moving as he passed her up to Natasha. She rested her head on Natasha’s chest and closed her eyes, sucking the digit furiously.</p><p>“We should put her to bed,” Natasha said gently, tilting her head towards the door.</p><p>Clint nodded and stood, stretching his hands above his head as the first wave of tipsiness overcame him. They hadn’t planned on getting drunk, but it would be their last chance at adult socialisation for at least a month and despite how much he hated parties, he didn’t mind it so much with alcohol coursing through his veins.</p><p>They had Elke, though, and having another drink with friends would always come second to her. They snuck down the hallway quietly, trying not to jostle her too much as she slept soundly against Natasha, though Clint knew that a simple bump wouldn’t bother her. It was usually the sound of their feet on a creaky stair that had her waking up on the spot, calling out for them before they could even take a breath.</p><p>“Can you grab – ”</p><p>“Yea,” Clint said, holding up the pyjamas. “Already got it.”</p><p>Natasha left him to change Elke into her pyjamas, setting up the porta-cot with her favourite blanket and the rabbit she had managed to pry from her hand. Clint lay her down and tucked her in gently, and the two of them stood back and watched her for a moment, and it was perhaps the cheesiest moment of Clint’s life. He wrapped his arm around Natasha's waist and pulled her close, and it was like coming home.</p><p>“We did good,” Natasha murmured.</p><p>He didn’t know if she meant Elke or the two of them, standing in this room together twelve years later, because he never would have imagined that this would be his life. He never would have imagined that they would come from small touches and sunburnt backs to here and now; a baby and two new scars and a lifetime of trust between them. They had been many people over the years, but <em>mama </em>and <em>dada </em>were by far the most important.</p><p>“Yea,” Clint replied, thinking of everything that had happened and everything that was yet to happen. “We did real good.”</p><p> </p><p>Clint heard the scream before he could even open his eyes. “Uh, Nat, your – ”</p><p>“No,” Natasha growled, swatting at him half-heartedly. “She is <em>your </em>kid before six a.m.”</p><p>“It’s past…” Clint started, then groaned as his eyes finally focused on the digital clock beside the bed. His head pounded and the world swam for one brief, nauseating second. “Who came up with this rule anyway?”</p><p>“I did,” Natasha mumbled. She had her face pressed into the pillow, hair a halo of tangled red curls. Even with her eyes closed she looked about as bad as he felt. “Make her stop.”</p><p>“Fine,” Clint moaned, hauling himself out of bed before he fell back asleep. Elke was in the room across from theirs and she only screamed louder when she saw Clint enter, bouncing up and down in her porta-cot. “Are the birds awake, Elke Phil?”</p><p>“Nnn,” she said, shaking her head from side to side. Her arms went up and he lifted her out, carrying her over to be changed before he took her back to bed. “Mama, mama.”</p><p>“Mama has a hangover,” Clint said, sticking the new diaper tabs down. “Daddy <em>also </em>has a hangover, but mines not so bad. This is because your mama can drink anyone under the table. And she also can't say no to a challenge.”</p><p>Elke babbled happily in her own language, and when she was re-dressed he stumbled back into the bedroom, depositing her in a heap of limbs on top of Natasha. She giggled and bounced until Natasha was forced to roll over and gather her into her arms, and then she was content to settle down again and chew on her rabbit’s foot.</p><p>“Morning Elke,” Natasha whispered, peppering her face with kisses. “We have a big trip ahead of us, okay? We need to have a big rest.”</p><p>She yawned and Elke mimicked her, tiny fists scrubbing at her eyes. Clint climbed back in beside them and they all drifted until Elke’s energy couldn’t be contained anymore, and then Clint took her to make breakfast while Natasha had a few more minutes sleep. She could never complain that he still didn’t save her ass, even if they weren’t on missions anymore.</p><p>They spent the rest of the morning packing the car with their bags and all of the gifts that Elke had been given for both Christmas and her first birthday. They decided to leave the mini Porsche behind, much to Tony’s annoyance, but Clint assured him they would save it for when Elke could actually steer the vehicle. Lunch was bagels on the balcony and then they were getting ready to leave, timing the start of their trip with when they hoped Elke would nap.</p><p>Maria caught them at the garage door. “I almost forgot Tinkerbell’s birthday present.”</p><p>Clint opened the box and whistled. “This is a knife.”</p><p>“It’s a nice knife,” Natasha commented, looking over his shoulder. “It’s a <em>really </em>nice knife.”</p><p>“It’s a big knife,” Clint said, glancing at Maria. “You do know she can't throw this yet, right?”</p><p>“I’m not an idiot,” Maria replied, punching him in the arm. “Look, it’s got her name engraved on it. This is a <em>decorative</em> knife.”</p><p>“I can put it beside her jewellery box,” Natasha said. She carefully took the box from Clint and held it delicately in her hands, as though just looking at it would make it break. “Thanks, Maria.”</p><p>“All good.” Maria waved them off, then checked her watch and swore. “I’ve got to run. Sharon is making a picnic or something. All I care about is the whipped cream and what I can lick it off.”</p><p>Clint blinked. “Say bye to crazy Aunt Maria, E.”</p><p>From her place in her car seat, Elke waved sleepily. Maria stuck her head in the door and poked her sides until the little girl was giggling softly, then planted a big kiss on her forehead that left a hint of lipstick.</p><p>“Merry Christmas Tink,” Maria said. “And happy birthday. Make sure you get everything you want, okay?”</p><p>Elke nodded seriously, though she probably didn’t understand what Maria was talking about. She shut the car door and waved goodbye, and once Natasha was comfortable with her feet on the dash Clint pulled out of the garage, settling in for the long trip to Iowa.</p><p>The time passed quickly enough. Elke slept for longer than they could have hoped and they stopped periodically on the way, swapping between driving and napping in the passenger seat. Natasha and Elke ate pasta with their fingers and Clint had somewhere between three and seven hotdogs, and on the final leg of their road trip they all ate pizza on the side of the road, bundled away from the cold in the back seats together.</p><p>By the time they reached the farm it was mid-afternoon the following day. Elke cried when she wasn’t allowed to play in the snow but soon settled with a bottle of milk and a movie while they dragged everything inside. Natasha passed out on the couch in front of the fire while Clint gave Elke a bath, and they were all in bed before it was dark outside. It had been a long two days, and as his head hit the pillow all he could think about was how excited he was to pick a Christmas tree with his new little family.</p><p> </p><p>The baby carrier had been something of a joke at first, a gift from Thor so that they could carry Elke and still have free hands to fight their enemies. Natasha had explained that they wouldn’t be taking Elke to battle while Clint had hidden his laughter behind his hand, and the carrier had been thrown in the closet without so much as a backwards glance.</p><p>Except now it was Clint’s favourite thing in the world, and he was dreading the day that Elke was too big to fit in it. For now she was snug, and he couldn’t help the proud smile that spread across his face as they took her to the Christmas tree farm on Christmas Eve. She clapped at the entrance, bouncing in the carrier as she noticed the first snow covered trees.</p><p>“They look like old trees,” Natasha commented from where she walked beside him, arm threaded through his. “You can teach E to test one.”</p><p>“Course I will,” Clint said. “She’s gotta pick her very first tree all by herself. What about this one, Elke? You can feel it.”</p><p>He reached out and showed Elke how to touch the pine needles, and she very carefully prodded it with one finger, reminding him so suddenly of Natasha on <em>her </em>first Christmas that it momentarily made his eyes burn. After her initial hesitation she grabbed the whole branch and shook it, dislodging snow and making her laugh loudly.</p><p>“Think she picked it,” Natasha murmured. “Hey, this is a great tree Elke. Can you say tree?”</p><p>“We’ve barely looked,” Clint whined. “Besides, I think she’ll pick all of them if we give her the chance.”</p><p>“We could start our own Christmas tree farm in the yard. Then she can have as many as she wants.”</p><p>Clint briefly entertained the idea, then winced as Natasha pinched him. “Ow. I wasn’t thinking about it.”</p><p>“Sure,” Natasha muttered, rolling her eyes. “Remember when you first brought me here?”</p><p>Clint’s eyes softened. “Couldn’t forget it if I tried. You were terrified.”</p><p>“So were you,” she replied. “It’s a little silly to think how much those choices meant to me back then. How much they <em>still </em>mean to me.”</p><p>“I don’t think it’s silly,” Clint shrugged. They wandered over to another tree and let Elke play with the branch for a minute. “If anything was silly, it was me not wearing sunscreen because I thought I would <em>have </em>to kiss you if you touched me.”</p><p>“Unbelievable,” Natasha muttered. “You could have just asked.”</p><p>“Where’s the fun in that?” Clint murmured, then spun her to face him. Elke squealed when she came face to face with her mother, reaching a fist out to try and latch onto her arrow necklace. “Can I have a kiss now?”</p><p>“I guess,” Natasha whispered, leaning up on tiptoes to press her lips against his sweetly. Elke blew a raspberry and Natasha laughed, pressing a kiss to her cheek, too. “I didn’t forget you, sweet thing.”</p><p>“I can't believe she’s one tomorrow,” Clint said. He held Elke’s hand and swung it back and forth slightly, listening to her nonsense baby chatter. “We’re about to have a <em>one year old</em>.”</p><p>“I know,” Natasha replied softly. “How can it feel like a second has passed <em>and </em>all the time in the world? She was so small yesterday. Remember when she crawled outside on her own?”</p><p>“Yea, my heart dropped out of my ass,” Clint laughed. “That was the day that I realised nothing would stop her. Not even a fever.”</p><p>Natasha shuddered. “That cold was the worst week of my life, and I’ve crawled through – ”</p><p>“Sewers in Hong Kong, I get it.”</p><p>Natasha turned and stopped him again, and Elke cried out her displeasure at them not moving. There was something in Natasha’s eyes, though, something that made him fall in love with her all over again. He would never understand what divine fate had tied their lives together, but he would be thankful for it until his dying day.</p><p>“We need to meet Santa,” Natasha said. “Before we take the tree home. I want… I want to remember this feeling forever. This feeling of wholeness.”</p><p>“Okay,” Clint agreed. “Let’s get a tree and go meet Santa. I want to remember this feeling too.”</p><p> </p><p>By the time the first scene of Home Alone started playing Elke had all but given up on civility, throwing herself off the couch in a fit of rage at not being able to hold her own fork. She looked at Clint with eyes like saucers and he caved, handing her the fork and carefully setting her on his lap so she could stab haphazardly at her cake.</p><p>“Birthday cake on Christmas Eve, huh?” Natasha asked as she folded herself down next to them. “Daddy’s a pushover.”</p><p>“In my defence, the cake looked too good to save for tomorrow,” he said. “Besides, we have another cake in the fridge.”</p><p>“I know,” Natasha hummed. “The tree looks great, if not a little… wonky.”</p><p>It had taken them almost two hours to wrangle Elke into decorating the tree, and in the end it had turned out looking like something shot straight from a canon. Gone was Natasha’s usual meticulous bauble placement, and instead they had homemade trinkets and whatever was left over from previous years dangling from the branches. The little koala from Australia sat right next to angel-Fury on the top, much to Elke’s chagrin.</p><p>But still, the tree was Clint’s favourite. They had their new Santa photo on the fridge, featuring a shy Elke on Natasha’s lap and him grinning like a fool on Santa’s other knee, and it was shaping up to be the best Christmas that he had ever had. They had decided to celebrate early so that Elke’s first birthday wasn’t overshadowed, and he was starting to think that it might become a new tradition.</p><p>“Best tree ever,” he declared. “I only got E the one Christmas present, too.”</p><p>Natasha nodded. “So did I. Should we open them now?”</p><p>Clint took Elke to the tree and let her attempt to pick up the two wrapped gifts while still holding her fork, then gave up and took them himself. The three of them sat on the floor by the fire and Clint placed the gifts in front of the baby, waiting eagerly to see what she would do.</p><p>“Rip it open,” he encouraged when she prodded at his gift. She looked at him and then at Natasha, frowning fiercely. “C’mon Elke, they’re all for you.”</p><p>“Here,” Natasha said, tearing into the paper slightly so that she would get the idea. “Your turn, love.”</p><p>“Ha!” Clint cried, pointing a finger at her. “You ripped it. I <em>told </em>you that you would rip it one day. Pay up Romanoff.”</p><p>“We didn’t actually bet,” Natasha muttered. “Besides, I was helping. It doesn’t count.”</p><p>Clint was about to retort when he realised that Elke had pulled the book from the wrapping paper and was already working on Natasha’s present. Natasha picked up the book and turned it over in her hands, a soft smile working its way onto her face as she flipped through the pages.</p><p>“I wanted you more than you will ever know, so I sent love to follow wherever you go,” she read, then looked up at him with watery eyes. “That’s really sweet.”</p><p>“Reminded me of you too, actually,” he whispered. “So I kinda had to get it, you know?”</p><p>“Yea,” Natasha breathed. She put the book aside to help Elke open the jewellery box that had fallen from the wrapping paper, tilting it so that he could see the small arrow pendant that was a child’s version of her own necklace. “I thought of you too.”</p><p>For a second Clint felt like he couldn’t breathe. He blinked back tears and pressed kisses to Elke’s thick hair, trying to imagine the world that he had lived in before this. The sun shone brighter, now, and waking up felt like the beginning of something new every day. He adored his girls, adored them so much that looking at them felt like that first Christmas all those years ago; so full of hope and wonder and trust that meant more than anything else he had ever felt before.</p><p>They were going to take Elke to scream from the mountain tomorrow. They had a year of loving her under their belts and a lifetime to come, and they were going to scream for everything they had gained. She was their hope, the future they had laid their past into, and whatever path had brought her to them was engraved in his bones now. Clint had never thought that it would feel like <em>this</em>.</p><p>Elke, nonplussed by her gifts, continued to stab at her cake until she had enough of a forkful to hold out to Natasha. She babbled something that could have meant anything, except they hadn’t really mastered her language yet, and before he could reach out and redirect her Natasha leant forward, lips closing around the metal as she carefully ate the offered treat.</p><p>When she looked at Clint she was smiling. “It doesn’t taste like blood anymore.”</p><p>Elke was hope. And Clint smiled too.</p>
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